corruption

Wind Weasels Do NOT Care Who They Hurt!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Wind Power Outfits – Thugs and Bullies the World Over

March 14, 2015 by Leave a Comment

tn_conwal-graveyard-6nov10-114

Potential threat to burial site on route to wind farm
Press release, Inishowen, Donegal, Ireland
4 March 2015

PRESS RELEASE

The developer of the wind farm at Crockbrack Hill has sent the Council a map that shows the route the turbines and related material will take from Noone’s Bridge past Ballinacrae Chapel into the Long Glen.

One local resident has said:

“I have recently had sight of the transport route of the wind turbines destined for Crockbrack Hill, near Kinnagoe Bay.

The most disturbing aspect of the plan is to cut through the field beside Ballinacrae Chapel to widen and build up the road to take the weight, width and length of lorries carrying turbines, cranes and concrete.

This passes close to the site of the old Ballinacrae chapel and graveyard which is still in use. Across the road is the new chapel and new graveyard.

What concerns me is that in my generation many of us know of relatives who died before baptism and in later life in tragic circumstances who were not buried on consecrated ground. It was traditional custom and practise for burials in children’s graves or along the hedges and walls on the outside of graveyards, in the adjacent field.

I go cold at the thought of a contractor possibly digging up human bones of all ages and discarding them in a pile of rubble to be dumped in a pit on Crockbrack hill”.

Another local resident said:

“Two years ago we went to local councillors and they knew nothing about the wind farm or the route. Since then they have promised that the tree in Moville would be saved from having to be chopped down to get the wind turbines through the village. And now this. This is far more upsetting.”

END OF PRESS RELEASE

After the above was printed in one paper, phone calls came asking for interviews on the local radio. It was of interest to the press. It was clearly of public interest. The local residents were excited and reassured by the level of media interest.

What the local residents didn’t expect was how the developer would respond.

He rang the paper and threatened them with his solicitors.

A letter from his solicitors duly arrived at the paper threatening legal action against the paper.

Then he sent the same solicitor’s letter to all the other print media and radio media in the area.

We are told by a reliable source that his solicitor letters stated the article defamed the developer.

You may have noticed that the developer’s name is not mentioned in the article. Nor was it in the solicitor’s letter demanding a correction.

The developers are two brothers out of Letterkenny called Eamonn and Niall Doherty. They have several wind companies (11 at the last count). The company that is developing the Kinnagoe Bay Crockbrack Hill wind farm is Regan Wind (Company Number: 495480). Their solicitors are Lanigan and Clarke. The consultants preparing the application, amendments and appeals are Harley Newman, Planning and Development Consultants. This is a partnership between Jim Harley and Conall Newman.

The residents are left bemused by the developer’s tactics.

  • Were they not planning to do an archaeological survey on that part of the field close to the graveyard, before any work began?
  • If they found remains, would it hold up the development?
  • Has the Council given them permission to go ahead?

The permission for the Wind Farm was granted in December 2012 by An Bord Pleanála, after an appeal by the developer to Donegal Council’s rejection of it. An Bord Pleanála rejected their own Inspector’s recommendation to turn down the appeal on the grounds that the site is inappropriate for a wind farm. Since then the developer has put in seven amendments and another appeal. He has yet to start building.

Absent from the An Bord Pleanála Conditions attached to the permission was the need for the developer to state the route to be used for the transportation of the turbines and relevant materials. Is this unusual?

Equally significant, the absence of a Condition addressing the route means that An Bord Pleanála obviously then did not require an Archaeological Survey on that land.

The residents are left with questions.

  • What is more important, the developers’ profit or possibly disturbing the sanctity of the dead?
  • Why so heavy handed with the press and media over a stretch of land? What are they frightened of?
  • If they intended to do an archaeological survey, which they have to do on the site itself, why wouldn’t they say so?
  • Are they hiding something?
  • Will they use these kinds of tactics again?

National Wind Watch

Kinnego Bay in north Inishowen

Faux-Green Renewable Energy…..It doesn’t work!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Marita on renewable nonsense

Posted on March 9, 2015

Can you imagine that people are still straining to make renewables work–when they are such colossal failures.

Solar and the renewable idiocy are the focus of this essay by Marita

Link to: Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world

Greetings!

You know I have written on extensively on what I call Obama’s green-energycrony-corruption. I’ve addressed news stories such as the near-certain death of Cape Wind and exposed the criminal activity of the solar panel Abengoa. In December, based on a thorough report someone else produced, I wrote a column about the German renewable energy experiment. It got me thinking, what if I pulled all of my research, and others, together and produced a report like the German one on which I’d based my Germany’s “energy transformation” — unsustainable subsidies and an unstable system column?

For the past couple of months, I have been quietly working behind the scenes to put together my first “white paper:” Solar Power in the U.S.—intended to provide a comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s consumers. It has been planned to be released today! I know when we released it, a review of the content would be the topic of this week’s column. I just didn’t know how it was going to take shape. But then, someone on my newsletter distribution list sent me a link to a U.S. News and World Report blog. As I read it, I kept finding discrepancies, omissions and flat-out untruths. While the Blog posttitle is: Keystone isn’t about jobs, the author was really writing about solar. He has obviously bought into the talking points; the propaganda—but didn’t know (or chose to ignore) the real world implementation of solar power in the U.S. As I read it, I knew I had the structure for this week’s column: Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world.

I had fun writing Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world—especially since I’d just completed the report and had the content top-of-mind. I hope you enjoy reading it and will post it and/or pass it on. It introduces the new report.

Thanks to Solar Power in the U.S., there is now a handy (15 page) guide that offers the real view, rather than the fantasy version, of what solar power can and cannot do, how effective it is, and the impact its rapid implementation is having on consumers. It is my hope that both consumers and policymakers will read Solar Power in the U.S. before making decisions with long-term implications.

Because I already have the 900-word version ready, I am offer you both the full-length and the shorter version. Please use whichever is better for your readers. The full-length version is pasted-in-below.

Marita Noon

Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great, inc.

PO Box 52103, Albuquerque, NM 87181

505.239.8998

For immediate release: March 9, 2015.

Commentary by Marita Noon

Executive Director, Energy Makes America Great Inc.

Contact: 505.239.8998, marita@responsiblenergy.org

Words: 1277

Solar Power propaganda vs. the real world

When a former “senior communications official at the White House” writes a blog post for U.S. News and World Report, you should be able to trust it. But when the author states that the Keystone pipeline (should it be approved) would create only 19 weeks of temporary jobs, everything else he says must be suspect—including the claim that our “energy infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by 2030.”

I contacted both a union representative and one from TransCanada—the company behind the Keystone pipeline. Each affirmed that the 19-week timeframe was total fantasy. The portion of the Keystone pipeline that remains to be built is 1179 miles long—the vast majority of that within the U.S.—with construction expected to take two years.

TransCanada’s spokesperson Mark Cooper responded to my query: “While some people belittle these jobs as temporary, we know that without temporaryconstruction jobs—and the hard work of the men and women who do them—we wouldn’t have roads, highways, schools or hospitals. We wouldn’t have the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Hoover Dam. So, I would say to these detractors: ‘It is OK if you don’t like or support Keystone XL. But let’s stop putting down the very people who have helped build America.’”

The premise of the On the Edge blog post is that we shouldn’t look at Keystone as a jobs creator. Instead, the author claims, the jobs are in “solar energy disruption.” He is frustrated that “GOP leaders almost universally ignore or disdain this emerging energy economy.”

He states: “A third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar. A new solar installation or project now occurs somewhere in the U.S.—built by a team of American workers employed in the fastest growing energy sector in the world—every three minutes.”

This may be true but, as you’ll see, it belies several important details. Plenty of cause exists for Republican lawmakers to “disdain” the growth in renewable energy.

If “a third of all new electric generation in 2014 came from solar,” there is reason for it—and it does not include sound economics.

First, efficient and effective base-load, coal-fueled electricity that has provided the bulk of America’s power is being prematurely shut down by regulations prompted by environmental lobbyists and promulgated by the Obama administration. It is virtually impossible to get a new coal-fueled power plant permitted in the U.S. Even natural gas-powered plants, such as the one planned to replace the Salem Harbor coal-fueled plant, meet with resistance from groups such as Grassroots Against Another Salem Plant, which “has pledged to use peaceful civil disobedience to block construction of the gas plant.” And, of course, just try to build a nuclear power plant and all the fear-mongers come out.

What’s left? Renewables, such as wind and solar, receive favorable treatment through a combination of mandates and subsidies. Even industrial wind and solar have their own opposition within the environmental lobby groups because they chop up and fry birds and bats— including protected bald and golden eagles.

The brand new report, Solar Power in the U.S. (SPUS), presents a comprehensive look at the impacts of solar power on the nation’s consumers.

Clearly, without the mandates and subsidies, this “solar energy disruption” would go dark.

We’ve seen companies, such as Solyndra, Abound Solar, and Evergreen Solar, gobankrupt even with millions of dollars in state and federal (taxpayer) assistance. I’ve written extensively on these stories and that of Abengoa—which received the largest federal loan guarantee ($2.8 billion) and has resorted to questionable business practices to keep the doors open (Abengoa is currently under investigation from several federal agencies).

SPUS shows that without the subsidies and mandates these renewable projects can’t survive. For example, in Australia, sales of solar systems “fell as soon as the incentives were cut back.” Since the Australian government announced that it was reconsidering its Renewable Energy Targets, “investments have started to dry up.”

Knowing the importance of the “incentives,” the solar industry has now become a major campaign donor, providing political pressure and money to candidates, who will bring on more mandates, subsidies, and tax credits. Those candidates are generally Democrats, as one of the key differences between the two parties is that Democrats tend to support government involvement. By contrast, Republicans lean toward limited government and the free market. The GOP doesn’t “disdain” solar, but they know it only survives because of government mandates that require a certain percentage of renewables, and specifically solar, in the energy mix, plus the subsidies and tax credits that make it attractive. Therefore, they can’t get excited about the jobs being created as a result of taxpayers’ involuntary investment, nor higher energy costs. There is a big difference between disdaining solar power and disdaining the government involvement that gives it an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

The blog post compares the “solar energy disruption” to what “occurred when direcTV and Dish started to compete with cable television. More choices emerged and a whole lot of new jobs were created.” However, those jobs were created through private investment and the free market—a fact that, along with solar’s dependence on incentives, he never mentions. Likewise, the jobs supported by building the Keystone pipeline would be through private funding.

The blog’s author touts this claim, from the book Clean Disruption: “Should solar continue on its exponential trajectory, the energy infrastructure will be 100 percent solar by 2030”—15 years from now. Even if state and federal governments were to continue to pour money into solar energy—which, as is pointed out in SPUS, subsidies are already being dialed back on a variety of fronts, there is no currently available solution to solar’s intermittency.

SPUS draws upon the example of Germany, which has led the way globally in solar and other renewables. Over time the high renewable penetration has contributed to residential electricity prices more than doubling. Renewables received favored status, called “priority dispatch,” which means that, when renewable electricity becomes available, the utilities must dispatch it first, thereby changing the merit order for thermal plants. Now many modern natural gas-fueled plants, as well as coal, couldn’t operate profitably. As a result, many were shut down, while several plants were provided “capacity payments” by the government (a double subsidy) in order to stay online as back-up—which maintains system stability. In Germany’s push for 80 percent renewable energy by 2050, it has found that despite the high penetration of renewables, given their inherent intermittency, a large amount of redundancy of coal- and natural-gas-fueled electricity (nuclear being decommissioned) is necessary to maintain the reliability of the grid.

As the German experience makes clear, without a major technological breakthrough to store electricity generated through solar systems, “100 percent solar by 2030” is just one more fantasy.

The blog post ends with this: “the GOP congressional leadership ignores these new jobs inside an innovative, disruptive energy sector that is about to sweep across the country it leads—in favor of a vanishingly small number of mythical Keystone ‘jobs’ that may never materialize. It makes you wonder. Why?”

The answers can be found in SPUS, which addresses the policy, regulatory, and consumer protection issues that have manifested themselves through the rapid rise of solar power and deals with many more elements than covered here. It concludes: “Solar is an important part of our energy future, but there must be forethought, taking into account future costs, jobs, energy reliability and the overall energy infrastructure already in place. This technology must come online with the needs of the taxpayer, consumer and ratepayer in mind instead of giving the solar industry priority.”

The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). She hosts a weekly radio program: America’s Voice for Energy—which expands on the content of her weekly column.

Wind Pushers Try to Discourage Studies, Claiming they’ll Blame it on “Nocebo Effect”, Regardless of Findings!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

A $2.5m investment in wind farms and health won’t solve anything

In even the best of studies, it will be impossible to separate out ‘nocebo’ effects from direct effects. reynermedia/Flickr, CC BY

The out-going head of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Warwick Anderson confirmed in Senate Estimates recently that calls for research proposals for up to a total of A$2.5 million over five years will soon be made to investigate questions about wind farms and health.

Under questioning from Greens Senator Richard Di Natale, Anderson told the committee A$2.5m was a paltry fraction of the agency’s total research budget, which in 2014 stood at A$802.42m. So A$2.5m is the equivalent of less than 0.06% of a projected five-year research budget on today’s allocations.

But researchers’ success obtaining grants has never been lower in Australia, with many strong grants falling below the cut-off score, which is ultimately budget determined. In 2014, researchers submitted 3,700 applications for project grants, with only one in 6.7 of these (14.9%) being funded. In the health services research field, 91.8% if applications were not funded.

Anderson has been emphatic that research standards will not be compromised in all this, and that only high-quality applications from suitably experienced researchers will be funded. It is not clear yet whether only one or more applications will be funded, if indeed any are.

The main debate in this area is between those who are adamant that wind turbines emit sounds and vibrations that upset and harm some of those exposed, and those who argue that the available evidence points strongly to health problems and complaints being psychogenic.

Nocebo phenomena – the idea that fear about wind turbines will cause some people to get symptoms – seem to be at the heart of both complaints and claims of illness.

I have documented an Old Testament-length list of 244 different symptoms and diseases alleged by wind farm opponents to be caused by the pestilence of wind farm exposure. The most bizarre of these include herpes, haemorrhoids, lung skin cancer and disoriented echidnas.

Study limitations

In even the best of studies, it will be impossible to separate out nocebo effects from putative direct effects. Here’s why. Ideally, researchers could select a location where a wind farm was being planned and conduct symptom- and illness-prevalence studies well before the wind farm was constructed and operational.

They would then repeat those measures at different times after the turbines began, analysing the influence of variables such as noise levels, economic benefit, pre-existing levels of antipathy to wind farms and “negatively oriented personality”. They could also request the production of medical records to see whether reported health problems long preceded the commencement of the turbines.

But this sort of research design will always be corrupted by wind farm opponents who, at the first hint of any wind farm development, move into a local area with the express purpose of alarming and frightening as many local residents as possible about what’s down the track.

No wind farm developer could ever commence construction without a long and open period of community consultation. These trigger the alarmists to turn on their best efforts to worry residents sick. This nocebo-priming case study I published recently describes in detail how they operate.

Residents fully sworn against wind farms are highly biased and can game such studies where self-reports of symptoms are central.

Lessons from Canada

Canada has already conducted the sort of study that might be proposed in Australia. In response to agitation from anti-wind groups, starting in 2012, it undertook the largest study of wind turbines and health ever attempted.

The study involved 1,235 houses in Ontario and Prince Edward Island, where randomly selected residents of all houses within 600m of 399 turbines on 18 wind farms were compared with those living 600m to 10km away.

In October 2014, Health Canada published the top-line results from the $CAN2.2 million study of the very sort that the NHMRC might well be asked to replicate.

It found the following were not associated with wind turbine noise:

  • self-reported sleep (such as general disturbance, use of sleep medication, diagnosed sleep disorders)
  • self-reported illnesses (such as dizziness, tinnitus, prevalence of frequent migraines and headaches) and chronic health conditions (such as heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes)
  • self-reported perceived stress and quality of life.

It did find that “annoyance” was related to wind turbine noise, with 16.5% of houses in Ontario and 6.3% on Prince Edward Island being annoyed.

Ontario is the epicentre of Canadian anti-wind farm activism, while Price Edward Island has seen little of this. So this major difference in the prevalence of annoyance lends support to the idea that wind farm annoyance is a “communicated disease” spread by anti-wind farm agitators.

The Canadian study also found that:

annoyance was significantly lower among the 110 participants who received personal benefit, which could include rent, payments or other indirect benefits of having wind turbines in the area e.g., community improvements. However, there were other factors that were found to be more strongly associated with annoyance, such as the visual appearance, concern for physical safety due to the presence of wind turbines and reporting to be sensitive to noise in general.

These findings are consistent with conclusions reached in what is now 24 reviews of the evidence.

Predictably, anti-wind farm groups in Canada rejected the Canadian study’s conclusions. It seems obvious that the only reports that such groups will ever accept are those which confirm their agenda. This is not a debate which will ever be resolved by research.

Political interests

Disturbingly, the NHMRC has allowed itself to be influenced by what reported internal email described as “the macro policy environment” – bureaucratic code for sensitivity to political interests.

Instead, Warwick Anderson and the Council should have stated clearly and emphatically to the parliament and the public that any researcher wanting to investigate wind farms and health was at perfect liberty to submit such a proposal to compete with all those being submitted by researchers considering any other topic. Such proposals would stand or fall on their competitiveness as determined by peer review.

There is no dedicated research funding being set aside by the NHMRC to further investigate the known massive risks to human health from fossil fuel extraction and burning. And it would be unimaginable for the NHMRC to quarantine money for any other non-disease like wifi sensitivity, smart electricity meter dangers or “fan death”. But this is what it has done here.

The money allocated is not much. But the real damage will be that in having this issue thus elevated to privileged research status, its political apostles will be greatly encouraged.

 

 

Government and Wind Industry, Sets Wind Victims Up for Failure.

/ 1957chev / 1 Comment

Ontario families fighting massive legal bill from wind-farm companies

COLIN PERKEL

TORONTO — The Canadian Press

A demand that four Ontario families pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs to billion-dollar companies is a thinly disguised warning to anyone pondering a challenge to industrial wind farms in Ontario, the families say.

In asking the courts to set the legal bill aside, the citizens say the award would cripple them financially and undermine access to justice, even in important public-interest cases.

Court documents show the companies – K2 Wind, Armow, and St. Columban – are seeking $340,000 in costs from the Drennans, Ryans, Dixons and Kroeplins, who lost their bid to scuttle three wind-farm projects.

The families, who worry wind turbines near their homes could harm their health, had challenged the constitutionality of Ontario’s approvals process before Divisional Court. They are now hoping the province’s top court will hear the case, potentially adding more litigation costs.

Shawn Drennan said his $240,000 bill was excessive given that he was only looking to protect his rights.

“We will have to go to the bank and beg and ask if we can borrow more money to pay their costs and it will be a significant burden on my wife and I,” Shawn Drennan told The Canadian Press. “My wife already works two jobs.”

Lawyer Julian Falconer, who represents the families, called the wind companies “blood-sucking, intimidating bullies.”

“It’s not just a bar to justice, it’s actually a terror tactic,” Falconer said in an interview.

“This is not about money. The idea is to send a message: ‘We will wipe you out if you challenge us.’”

The companies say the high-stakes court challenge forced them to deploy considerable legal resources to defend projects they say are safe.

“While the appellants were entitled to bring their litigation, their decision to do so had significant consequences,” St. Columban argues in its court filing.

“There must be an appreciation of the real disruption, and real cost, suffered by the adverse party.”

Generally speaking and as a matter of fairness, the losing side in civil proceedings has to pay the legal bills incurred by the winning side.

K2, which is putting up 140 turbines, some of which are about 750 metres from the Drennans’ home near Goderich, Ont., says the families knew the risks of losing.

In addition, the failed bid to halt construction pending outcome of their court battle was unnecessary and should “never have been brought,” K2 says in its submissions.

The families argue they raised an important and novel constitutional issue that is squarely in the public interest given the reasonable prospect of serious harm to the health of citizens. They also say they did not stand to benefit financially.

The companies reject that argument. They maintain the families were indeed fighting a personal battle, do have the means to pay, and say the case was in fact contrary to the public interest because the challenge delayed government-approved green-energy projects.

For the families, it’s become a case of “lose your home to save your home,” they say.

“By simply exercising their right to access to the courts, the appellant families now face the disheartening prospect of financial ruin,” their submission states.

“When, as in this particular case, the consequence of that access becomes crippling financial loss, ‘access to justice’ becomes a meaningless platitude.”

Many of the World’s Most Brilliant Thinkers, Have No Formal Degrees….

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

For a friend.

by Pointman

Any real paradigm change in our understanding of how the universe actually tickety tocks along always starts with one person having an interesting and unusually controversial idea, which is always fought against tooth and nail by reactionaries who are heavily invested in whatever worldview is the currently accepted orthodoxy.

There’s nothing wrong with that and that’s the way it should be, since that’s the only way we can robustly examine new ideas and prune off the crap ones. Consensually accepted ideas, like settled science, are a chimera of the intellectual coach potato, buoyed up from all those tired old broken springs beneath them by nothing more than their own flatulence.

I’m not talking here about someone fiddling around with some equation on the third level fringe implications of a rock solid theory, nor that sort of monomaniac who believes in an orbital tea pot or even those really really clever people amongst us who after years of really intensive education are now girding their loins in preparation to finally starting work on that massive teacup storm theory that nobody in their right mind really gives a rat’s ass about, but rather those blessed once a century or two people who come up with ideas that really rock the socks off our little ball of dirt wobbling its way around the sun.

When you’ve spent your entire life believing the universe works in a certain way, writing books about it and teaching that as Gospel, it’s understandable to resent a little shit coming out of nowhere and pointing out seemingly obvious things which imply you were wrong all along. Implying is me putting a nice spin on it, because I’ve got better social skills than the excreta in question; it’s graphically nailing a flawed idea to the wall for all the world to see. The people on the receiving end of that may have the job title scientist, but as always the people holding it are still all too painfully human.

As an aside and if it’s any consolation, there really wasn’t any way of softening the blow. They were always going to come after you in response, because people that smart find it hard to accept they were so badly wrong. Anyway, invariably the little shit embarrassing the hell out of everyone is a dodecahedron-shaped peg attempting a terribly bad imitation of fitting into that round hole of what we would call a normal person.

They’re actually quite easy to spot.

Newton had at least three nervous breakdown that we know of, was a virtual hermit for eight years and yet went on to chair the Royal Society, lay the foundations of celestial mechanics, optics, applied mathematics and as an afterthought the mad bugger came up with calculus, though he was sly enough to keep the latter up his sleeve for a number of years until Leibnitz was on the verge of publishing, just to cut the legs out from under him.

At the same time, he worked illegally and therefore in secret on his ideas about Alchemy and naturally there is no documentation of his success or not in that area. I would seriously love to read his Principia Alchamaea, if perchance there might be such a paper. Oh to have been born a few hundred years earlier. Once upon a time, giants bestrode the very Earth like Goliaths.

The best qualification Einstein ever earned was an average grade teaching cert, which wasn’t even good enough to get him a job as a teacher in his own country. The only way somebody like him can nearly fail an unfailable course to be a teacher is for their body to turn up at every class and at the same time their mind drifting around somewhere else altogether. Cosmology’s loss became the Swiss patent office’s gain.

We can only be thankful that he still liked to fiddle around in his evenings and on weekends with puzzles concerning life, the universe, special relativity and things like that. I suppose we all have to have our little hobbies as a break from mind numbingly boring jobs.

The conclusions to be drawn from looking at any list of the big ideas people is that they aren’t predictable occurrences, can’t be manufactured just in time by any educational process known to man, won’t profile to the normal, will always be at the slightly bewildered centre of savage controversies raging around them by hordes of passionate supporters and equally passionate detractors and rarely end up with the long term loving relationships most of us expect of life. It will always be a tough row to hoe for them.

On a strict Dawkin’s analysis, they are never of immediate utility and should therefore be selected out of the gene pool but that sort of stoopid hammer the screw home thinking breaks down when it comes to us because we’re unique – we have consciousness andsomething else which gets slipped under the altruism rock with some embarrassment on all sides because science daren’t speak its name.

I do relish sitting around the green beige table when someone gets dealt that card by reality, peeks at it for a horrified moment and quickly flicks it into the discard pile to common nods of relief – nobody wants to grapple with that one from inside their necessarily stripped down and consequently crippled view of the universe. That would be nearly grownup stuff.

They may be the runt of the litter but the protectiveness thing kicks in. We don’t throw them over the nearest cliff like the Spartans, instead we give them extra protection and sometimes that’s against the very clever people amongst us who are outraged because of the unfairness of what they represent. They can just see new and shiny things without having done all the blood, sweat and tears of decades of education. It’s just not fair, it really isn’t.

The world is full of clever educated people and you’d be wise to allow them to refine an original idea once they’ve been handed it but you’d be a fool to expect them to come up with truly original thinking. Their minds have been formed, trained, the malleable red-hot iron of their youth has been hammered, bashed and is now cold and annealed. Progress in their education has been trammelled by conforming to whatever is orthodoxy and punishing any wild ideas which are off the reservation. All the proper ways of thinking are by now a Galvanic reflex for them. It’s a form of instutionalised child abuse of the mind by the well-intentioned.

All life develops a mix of skills and mechanisms to protect itself and survive, because that prime directive is welded deep down into the very DNA of life itself, and not even the big ideas people are an exception to it. Mostly, I think life crushes them down early, but the few survivors get along because there’s someone around who looks after them. Even after they’ve fallen out of the nest, they’ve a habit of bumping into people who realise there’s something special about this fledgling and they’ll never make it without some help. It’s a blundering and unconscious throw yourself at their mercy ploy and Ferris Bueller would be so proud to add it to his playbook.

That’s a passive strategy and doesn’t really count because it’s reactive and beyond their control. The big one and always their coping mechanism du jour is to retire within themselves. Withdraw. Gimme your best shot big guy, it won’t hurt, but there’s always a gang of them vying to take coup. Play the idiot savant, do the odd bit of performing seal when it’s demanded and after they’ve all had their jollies and fucked off, you can get back to chipping your way through to something only you can see. It’s good, it’s so comfortable and so easy. At some point, you realise it’s a quiet death and you’re not too bothered.

They’re easy to abuse, since there’s not much sense there. Sense. Where there’s no sense, there’s no feeling, as the old saying goes and there’s usually a bunch of them trying out that theory. Take it, just take it and that passive acceptance is understood to be some sort of confirmation of the cruel off-piste activities their nice parents definitely wouldn’t approve of. What they don’t realise is that they’re just the latest wave of abusers, the new guys in town.

You’ve been done over by better and learned to use the emotion mixing deck in your head. Slide everything down to the bottom and wait, just wait for it all to blow over. It’s all been turned down and nearly but never quite muted. But the emotion is still there. Raw, red, naked and angry, just smouldering away and ready to rock the fucking shop.

I hoiked you out of that comfortable niche and straight into the danger zone. I told you from the very get go that after everyone got over themselves telling you how wonderful and marvellous you were, they’d turn because I knew you’d be pulling down some temples. I know you and I know the beast. You’re way too shiny a penny kiddo, they’ll always be coming after someone like you. Well, that’s happened. You wanna go back to safely pushing a grey sodden mop around the bogs on your way to your next stay in the big house, sulk away, but the delicious ideas will do the swirl down the john and nobody will care.

You’ve taken a bloody good bashing from mediocrity’s bootboys but notice despite their viciousness, they’ve steered well clear of your idea, because they just don’t know how to even begin refuting it, since it neatly fits all the awkward data points of reality they’ve been struggling to explain away for years. The outlier makes the case for the outliers perhaps. Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.

Yes, you’re shocked at the venom, especially from such nice educated people like them. Welcome to our planet Earth at its grubby worst. It’ll get better though. You’ve laid it all out for anyone to see and there’s really nothing more you can do. Relax, get on with something else. Leave them all to kill each other over it. Five years or so down the line, you’ll have science groupies throwing their knickers at you.

A bugger like you was always doomed to be an expensive friendship for someone like me, the smartie who long ago decided to do his very own bop in his very own space and never be a fanboy of anyone or anything. Knowing that, I embraced you anyway because your ideas danced and you didn’t even notice their effect on me. I somehow allowed you to slip through the chinks in my old crustacean armour.

I’m not you nor on my best day could ever be someone like you, but I do know some stuff myself and I’ll be damned if I let you slink away to be eventually proved right four decades later. The stuff I know is simple, and by the way you’d be totally shite at it, because it’s all about those tricky variables called people.

The unflattering reality is that for most supposedly original ideas, their time has come. If it wasn’t Crick and Watson who’d first worked out it was a double helix, someone else would have a month or two later because that idea already had a lot of other people chasing hot on its heels. That fruit was just aching to drop from the tree.

The sad truth to tell is that most ideas are the logical off the shoulder progeny of current thinking who’re just absolutely dying to be born. That’s all fine, it’s all good stuff really but at heart it’s just refinement – at best the next logical transformation of the equation. Not a lot of smarts required really.

What really moves us along is the big whacking bolt out of the blue idea. It’s not the usual logical inferential progression of anything. It’s just a big boss fuck off idea, so radically far out there in front of anything else it’s a gobsmacker. After the stunned silence, it’s slowly recognised as the real deal. We’ll spend the next few decades building backwards from it into current thinking. So few people have that gift within them. You have it.

You come back to us.

©Pointman

Much Like WindPushers, Climate Alarmists Will Personally Slander Anyone Who Dissents!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Greenpeace enlists Justin Gillis &John Schwartz of the NY Times in Journalistic Terrorist Attack on Willie Soon – Miss Target, Hit Smithsonian Instead

February 23, 2015

Guest Essay by Kip Hansen

I cannot bring myself to quote from this unconscionable piece of journalistic malfeasance:

Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher

By JUSTIN GILLIS and JOHN SCHWARTZ FEB. 21, 2015

Instead, I simply let my title and the following excerpts from the so-called “supporting” documents offered by Greenpeace speak for themselves. Their [non-]journalist lackeys: Justin Gillis and John Schwartz of the NY Times, apparently didn’t actually read them – or they might have noticed that the contracts are between the Smithsonian (not Soon) and Southern and if they had stretched themselves, might have uncovered the definition of “deliverables”….I can’t believe Gillis and Schwartz allowed themselves to be duped again.

clip_image002*****

clip_image004

*****

clip_image006

*****

clip_image002[1]

*****

clip_image008
*****

clip_image010

*****

clip_image012

*****

clip_image014

“Agenda 21” The Reason for the “War on Carbon Fuels”!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Strange Allies in the War on Carbon Fuels

/ February 17, 2015

big-oilGuest opinion by Viv Forbes –

What great cause could unite Prince Charles, President Obama, the Pope, the Arab Oil sheiks, the United Nations, the European Union, the Russians, the Chinese, Pacific Island Nations, most undeveloped countries, the glitterati of Hollywood, left-wing politicians, unrepentant reds, government media, the climate research industry, Big Oil, Big Gas and the Green Blob. It must be something posing a clear and urgent danger to all humanity?

No, the crusade that unites them all is the War on Carbon Fuels, focussed mainly on that most vilified target, coal.

The biggest group, and the generals in this war on carbon, have no real interest in the facts or science of global climate change – they see climate alarmism as a great opportunity to achieve their goal of creating an unelected global government. They have even laid out their plans in a document called Agenda 21.

This group naturally includes the United Nations and all of its subsidiaries, the EU, and left wing politicians and media everywhere. At a news conference in Brussels recently, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity, but “to change the economic development model” ie destroy what is left of free enterprise and private property. See:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/021015-738779-climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism.htm
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/10/10/shell-oil-lego-greenpeace-and-the-environmental-movement-s-war-on-capitalism/
The next big group of carbon warriors is the anti-western failed states who see this as their big chance to enrich and entrench their ruling classes with “climate reparations”.
Then there are the enviro-entrepreneurs forever seeking new crusades to energise their supporters and get the donations rolling in – Greenpeace, WWF, Get Up etc…
In the dark corner are the anti-human Malthusians and the Deep Greens who want to get rid of most of us other people – personified by the rich and powerful such as Prince Charles and Maurice Strong. They know that carbon fuels support millions of people by cultivating, harvesting, transporting, processing and storing most of the food that supports the cities of the world. Killing the use of carbon fuels will certainly achieve their goal of reduced world population.

See:
http://explosivereports.com/2013/01/12/prince-charles-openly-endorses-draconian-conclusions-of-new-population-study/

Naturally, government media usually support a bigger role for government, and all media like a scare story. Truth or logic does not matter greatly for most of them – just so long as they can coax a looming disaster story from someone. The daily diet of natural calamities soon heightens climate anxiety, which then motivates politicians to be seen to be “doing something”.
And then there are those who see that fighting carbon fuels also suits their pockets. As someone said “When placing a bet, the best horse to back is the one called ‘Self-interest’ – at least you know he is trying”.

For example, Shell, with its massive gas interests, was caught campaigning against coal fired power, the main competitor of gas in electricity generation. See:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/innovationchallenge/shell-admits-campaigning-against-coal-fired-power-plants/story-fn9dkrp5-1226770855004

Arab Oil interests were caught funding a film attacking their competitors – shale oil fracking in America. See:
http://dailysignal.com/2012/09/28/matt-damons-anti-fracking-movie-financed-by-oil-rich-arab-nation/

And a Russian oil company was exposed funding US anti-carbon green groups. See:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/foreign-firm-funding-u-s-green-groups-tied-to-state-owned-russian-oil-company/

The Chinese of course are great supporters of green energy as long as it is installed elsewhere – eg they supply the machines and solar panels and then welcome the factories forced from the host country by soaring electricity prices.
Gas, nuclear and hydro power will be the greatest long term beneficiaries of the war on coal. Initially they will be needed to provide base load and back up for intermittent green power like wind and solar. Then as green subsidies are withdrawn to appease angry taxpayers, the green play-toys will fail and grown-up generators will step easily into full time electricity production.

Finally, the government bureaucracy and the research grants industry justify their existence by “solving community crises”. They love “The Climate Crisis” because it can be blamed for any weather event anytime, anywhere. It is unlikely to be solved, no matter how many dollars are thrown at it – a problem that does not exist can never be “solved”. And the sinister “Greenhouse Effect”, like any good ghost, is invisible, mysterious in operation, debatable, and allows anyone to produce their own scare story.

Opposing this coalition of climate alarmists and opportunists is a rag-tag army of stressed tax payers and electricity consumers and a scattering of sceptical scientists and media researchers.
But the imposing alarmist empire has a hollow heart – the globe has refused to warm, the alarmist “science” is crumbling, their climate models are discredited, some researchers have been caught manipulating records and results, and the costs of green electricity are becoming obvious and onerous. The public is growing restive, governments can no longer afford the climate industry cuckoo in the public nest and the ranks of sceptics grow. Groups like UKIP in UK and the Tea Party in US have abandoned the war on carbon.

The climate revolt is spreading.

Disclosure: Viv Forbes is a shareholder and non-executive director of a small Australian coal exploration company. His views are not shared or supported by most Big Coal CEO’s.

Irrefutable Proof, That Wind Turbine Noise Can Affect Our Health!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/unseen-unheard-wind-farms-a-blow-to-health/story-e6frg8y6-1227219122344

 

Unseen, unheard wind farms

a blow to health

Graham Lloyd

Environment Editor

Sydney

GROUNDBREAKING Australian research has established a “cause and effect” existed between wind farms and health impacts on some nearby residents, a peer review by one of the world’s leading acoustic experts says.

The review of a study by Steven Cooper of residents living near Pacific Hydro’s Cape Bridgewater Wind Farm was undertaken by Paul Schomer, standards director of the Acoustical Society of America.

Dr Schomer’s research has been used to define the dose response and acoustic criteria for road traffic, rail traffic, aircraft traffic and shooting.

As a result of the Cooper research, Dr Schomer said wind farm developers should now say “We may affect some people”.

He said regulators charged with protecting health and welfare “will not be able to say they know of no adverse effects”.

Pacific Hydro has said previously it did accept the Cooper research had established a cause-and-effect link, a claim that was not made in the report.

The National Health and Medical Research Council this week said there was no consistent evidence wind farms caused ­adverse health effects and further research was needed.

The NHMRC did not review the Cooper research.

Dr Schomer said the Cooper work had shown clearly there was “at least one non-visual, non-­audible pathway for wind turbine emissions to reach, enter and ­affect some people”.

The six people from three households involved in the study had recorded the timing and level of effects they were ­experiencing.

Their notes had shown that impacts corresponded with wind turbine power changes. The subjects did not know what was happening with the wind turbines when they recorded their notes.

“This study finds these six people sense the operation of the turbine(s) via other pathways than hearing or seeing, and that the adverse reactions to the operations of the wind turbine(s) correlates directly with the power output of the wind turbine(s),” he said.

“The important point here is that something is coming from the wind turbines to affect these people and that something increases or decreases as the power output of the turbine increases or decreases.

“It really does not matter what the pathway is, whether it is infra-sound or some new form of rays or electromagnetic field coming off the turbine blade. If the turbines are the cause, the wind farm is responsible and needs to fix it.”

Dr Schomer said criticism that only a small number of people were involved in the study was not relevant. “One person affected is a lot more than none; the existence of one cause-and-effect pathway is a lot more than none.”

The peer review was co-signed by George Hessler, the president and principal consultant for US acoustics specialist Hessler Associates.

 

The Dark, Cruel, and Ugly Side of Faux-Green Environmentalism

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

A climate of hate and a license to kill.

by Pointman

Of late we’ve seen a rash of examples showing just how ugly the face of the cult of environmentalism can be. There’ve been calls for the beheading of skeptics and even a wish that their children should kill them. If you’re fresh to what’s laughably called the climate debate, you’ll probably be appalled by such extremist exhortations to do the type of sick things which would quite comfortably fit into the sort of violence porn uploaded to YouTube for wannabe Jihadis and the like to get their rocks off on. However, if you’ve been following the issue for a few years, you’ll know such repulsive and vile sentiments are far from anything new though they are of late stronger.

In previous years, there’s been suggestions that “deniers” should have the word tattooed on their forehead, the targeting and naming of their children by certain verminous types not only in the real world but in the virtual twittering world, appearances in the dead of night of masked people on their front lawns with burning torches in the traditional KKK fashion, there should be climate criminal trials à la Nuremburg and that such deniers should be gathered together in central facilities for re-education, the latter suggestion being made by a second-generation blood relative of JFK, who’d probably be appalled at any genetic connection to such a closet fascist hiding behind the skirts of the Democratic Party and totally disgracing his Irish immigrant lineage.

I suppose he’s someone who’s lived nothing but a lard-arsed privileged life, safely insulated inside a rich clan skating along on a dead man’s reputation without ever putting his ass anywhere near the everyday experience of bagging up groceries in the local supermarket just to make a minimum wage, never mind the risk of getting it shot off in the service of his country. I despise such pointless people who’re totally without any sense of decency and whose whole career is based on feeding off the memory of a better man. I really do. There’s no decency, no sense of decorum about them and without ruthlessly exploiting the familial connection, they’d be nobodies.

There are a number of things to be noticed about such visceral hate speech. I suppose for starters it’s a one way street, if only because only one side owns all the mass propaganda outlets. Once you get outside the free blogosphere and into the mainstream media, climate skeptics who speak their mind are a very small demographic and hunted down enthusiastically by an overwhelmingly yee-haw lynch mob of hang the nigga high liberals of the media in pursuit of the only minority left about whom anything can be said.

You can sense a sort of glee, a certain cathartic joy at actually having the freedom to hurl the sort of vile bigoted slurs that haven’t been publishable in a newspaper for the last half century. The good news is you can’t be punished for it. Indeed, your stock will only rise in the righteous circles you crave so badly to be a part of. Not only can you say horrible things about them, you can even get away with committing criminal offences against them, just ask Peter “identity thief” Gleick. You won’t even get charged.

It’s the new touchy-feely McCarthyite era of the twenty-first century. Just substitute Denier for Commie and it’s all very familiar. Are you now or have you ever been a denier? Let the hearings begin, but not as a committee of Congress but in the full glare of the mainstream media. The results of such a trial by media are exactly the same as those achieved by the Senator from Wisconsin. Blacklisting, deprivation of livelihood, your reputation besmirched and all of it with absolutely no mechanism to defend yourself, never mind any right of reply.

What type of person feels free to indulge in such extremist dialogue?

The most visible is what’s called the troll or cyber bully plying their anonymous trade. They’re mostly personality defectives of one type or another but more often than people might think, they’re actually paid commenters earning a living by trying to close down debate in the blogosphere, usually by inciting a screaming match. To a large extent, that worked in former years, but since the plunge in visitors to alarmist sites they’ve been obliged to move their activities to the skeptic sites, but by now most of those sites recognise them for what they are and keep them on a short leash. If they let them in, it’s just for a bit of fun. Personally, I just don’t let them through the door, though occasionally I like to do a bit of troll baiting when things are slow.

What’s important to note about the trolls, is that they are like a deniable terrorist wing of a supposedly respectable political movement. For instance, the Guardian left comments calling for the beheading of Matt Ridley up on their site for four days, while at the same time deleting other comments protesting about it. More than a few of the more virulent ones are in reality supposedly sane commenters operating under a nom de guerre.

The next demographic would be establishment figures, politicians on the make, climate scientists, troughers sucking up the monetary swill and mainstream journalists. I exclude the alarmist bloggers from this set, since they’re only read by a few devoted acolytes and definitely nobody of any consequence, simply because the content is poor, juvenile, often libellous and suitable only for consumption by the alarmingly thick. You really do have to wipe your feet and wash your hands after visiting one. A little jet set experience on a bidet wouldn’t hurt either …

To a large extent, this grouping indulges in a more subtle form of stereotyping but invariably with the “denier” word unconsciously used as a given. It’s a useful discriminant to spot them. Once they use that word, you know what you’re dealing with; a true believer. They’re the next step up, a bit more respectable than the trolls or bloggers though at times the margin can be pretty slim.

The common denominator they all share is that they’re all activists who’re quite prepared to trash the perceived integrity of whatever profession they’re supposed to be practising in order to advance the “cause”, as it’s referred to in the climategate emails. They’re quite happy to distort, deceive, spin, destroy, pervert and simply lie their heads off because they just know the end justifies any means, and that’s something so many skeptics still find hard to get their head around.

There are one or two of them who like to represent themselves as honest brokers in the middle ground, but when push comes to shove or they’re in the right company and getting their ego stroked, the old denier word soon comes creeping out of hiding.

The last and most dishonourable group would be the people who’ve taken some time to look into the issue, who know the weakness of the alarmist case, know it’s so often a perversion of science, recognise only too well the professional calibre of the people indulging in the hate speech and yet stand still on the side-lines saying nothing. As Burke said, all that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to stand idly by and do nothing. They may not be using the hate speech, but their silence condones it and therefore allows it to grow.

They are the only solution to the problem but as long as they maintain their silence and do not speak out against it, they are a part of the problem.

The last question to ask is why? Why all the hate, why all the venom? For most of them, it’s the anger phase in the death of their belief system and the skeptics are the ones they blame totally for their particular Götterdämmerung, the twilight of the gods or in this case Gaia. The skeptics reflect the sentiment of the common man, whose concerns have been placing worrying about the environment at the bottom of every poll for several years. It’s all our fault, we low creatures destroyed their dreams. Any belief in Gaia is dying because of us.

The real point about unrestricted hate speech is that it’s an enabler. When a non-stop, unrestrained stream of perverted, violent and hateful invective is allowed to be rained down on any group, eventually the words will lead to doing the deeds. We in the West allowed extremist imams to preach violence and we’re now seeing the results of allowing such “free speech”, in the form of home-grown terrorists attacking the societies they were raised in.

What I do know because I’ve seen it before is that there will be consequences from such an accepted environment of casual hate speech. Someone, somewhere, sometime will decide one of the deniers will have to be killed to protect the environment. It’s a prediction but one I feel will eventually happen as the hate speech spirals ever more violently out of control and gives someone a feeling of authorisation to do something murderous to save the planet.

On that day, one or more people will have died and some people’s invective will have to be examined in the light of that tragic event, because there will be no wiggle out using that venerable excuse of a lone demented maniac who had nothing to do with you. You’ll have made him, you’ll have made him feel righteous, you conditioned him, you wound him up, he murdered people – it’ll be on your conscience.

Is there any real chance the people actually responsible for inciting the murder will ever face a court of law for their part in it? Of course not, they’re in that long tradition ofslinking away unpunished and on with their prestigious lives to horizons anew and all is forgotten. Their skirts will be clean and no blood will rub off on their hems.

The more the hate escalates, the more certain it becomes that the sad day is slouching towards us.

©Pointman

Liberal Corruption to be Investigated…..Again!!!

/ 1957chev / Leave a comment

Police step up investigation into Ontario Liberals over job-offer allegation

ADRIAN MORROW

TORONTO — The Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Feb. 03 2015, 

Ontario Provincial Police are stepping up their investigation into bribery accusations against Premier Kathleen Wynne’s deputy chief of staff in the Sudbury by-election.

Investigators have obtained a court order to get audio recordings of two Liberal operatives, including Ms. Wynne’s deputy chief of staff Patricia Sorbara, allegedly offering Andrew Olivier a government job as they tried to persuade him to drop out of the race.

MORE RELATED TO THIS STORY

The revelation comes just days before the Thursday by-election, in which the Liberals are locked in a tight battle with the NDP and Mr. Olivier, who is running as an independent.

Mr. Olivier said investigators visited him last week with a production order for his recordings and transcripts of his conversations with Ms. Sorbara and Gerry Lougheed, a local Liberal fundraiser.

“[The police] approached me and submitted a production order last week, requesting to have any other information given over to them so that they can conduct their investigation or reopen their investigation,” he told The Globe and Mail. “It shows that they’re pursuing the investigation into this.”

Mr. Olivier said officers met him at his campaign office, where he handed over the information they were looking for. He said he also met with Elections Ontario officials for a lengthy interview.

Detective-Superintendent Dave Truax, head of the OPP’s criminal investigations branch, confirmed police had obtained the production order and that Mr. Olivier co-operated.

Mr. Olivier, who is quadriplegic, regularly records conversations because it is easier than taking notes. He previously posted both recordings online.

In one telephone call last December, Ms. Sorbara presented Mr. Olivier with a menu of possible job options. At the time, Mr. Olivier was running for the Ontario Liberal nomination, but Ms. Sorbara wanted him to drop out so that Glenn Thibeault, then an NDP Member of Parliament in Ottawa, could receive the provincial nomination unopposed.

“We should have the broader discussion about what is it that you’d be most interested in doing and then decide what shape that could take,” Ms. Sorbara said in the recording. “Whether it’s a full-time or a part-time job at a constituency office, whether it is appointments to boards or commissions, whether it is also going on the executive.”

Mr. Lougheed, a long-time Sudbury Liberal activist, made a similar pitch in a meeting at Mr. Olivier’s office: “The Premier wants to talk to you. We would like to present to you options in terms of appointments, jobs, whatever.”

The Elections Act forbids offering someone a job in exchange for not running in an election. Opposition MPPs contend it could also constitute a criminal bribery offence.

Ms. Wynne has defended Ms. Sorbara’s actions. The Premier concedes that the Liberals wanted to keep Mr. Olivier “involved” in politics. But she argues that, since she had the power to unilaterally appoint Mr. Thibeault as her candidate and reject Mr. Olivier’s nomination bid, any jobs Ms. Sorbara dangled in front of Mr. Olivier were not made in exchange for him dropping out.

“I had made a decision about appointing a candidate, which is within the purview of the leader of the Liberal Party,” Ms. Wynne said Monday. “At the same time, I tried to keep a young man who had been a candidate previously involved and reached out to him. Did that turn out the way we would’ve wanted, and is he still involved? No. But would I try to keep him involved again? Absolutely.”

Ms. Wynne and Ms. Sorbara have also met with Elections Ontario, which is conducting a separate investigation into the incident.

Mr. Oliver says he also spoke directly with Ms. Wynne, before his conversation with Ms. Sorbara. He says she asked him to step aside, but did not directly make any job offers herself. He declined to say whether he made a recording of that conversation as well.

Mr. Olivier went public with the story in mid-December, then released the tapes in January. He said he only released the tapes because some people did not believe his account of the conversations.

“It was quite difficult to even campaign on openness and truthfulness and integrity when everyone in town here thought that I was crying wolf,” he said. “The point of [releasing the tapes] was to let people know that I wasn’t lying, that I was being truthful and honest.”

The Sudbury by-election will not change the balance of power in the legislature, but the Liberals are looking to it as a way to shore up their slim majority. The NDP, meanwhile, wants to hold on to the seat it wrested from the Liberals last June. They have nominated Suzanne Shawbonquit, abusiness consultant, to carry their banner.

The Progressive Conservative candidate is Paula Peroni.