At this point, despite the blog recovery here, I think I’m going to make that site the new URL where you can find Scott’s Diatribes, and you can find it at this address:

http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com/

..so change your bookmarks accordingly.

We’re going to be moving Progressive Bloggers eventually to Kelly’s server anyhow, so it makes sense for me to move my personal site there as well. This site will stay up as long as my friend Mike (who I thank for hosting me here for 2 years almost) will allow it - that way if people have links to specific stories at this site, their links won’t fail.

On this Remembrance Day, my thoughts turn to my 2 grandfathers (both still alive) who served in the army and air force respectively for Canada in World War 2. It’s not hard to remember this for me, as my 1 grandfather is now finally in the Veterans Hospital, and his Alzheimer’s has progressed so that most of his remaining memory comes from the the 1940’s when he was overseas.

Remember them all today at 11 am.

Oh, you thought it was going to be for a Liberal leadership candidate? Sorry about that.. but I’m a declared neutral in this race and will be for quite some time to come until I see all the candidates and all their positions - particularly on party reform. I may not endorse anyone, but there’s time to decide that yet.

Oh.. about the Speaker. I see James is putting up a spirited defence of Peter Milliken, who’s been the Speaker for a few years now. You can read his reasonings there. Personally, I don’t particularly have a pro or anti-Milliken bent. If he gets the job back, good for him, but I do wonder whether some “fresh blood” might not be a good thing to see if that person can change the tone of the House.

I obviously don’t think that will happen if one of the Conservative MP’s tries to get the job, so hopefully any of them get voted a resounding “no”, but I’ll have to wait and see who all the candidates are from the opposition benches.

UPDATE: Apparently, Olaf thinks I need to clarify my remarks since I didn’t do what I said I was going to do in the title of my post;so I’ll say that I changed my mind during the blogpost (which I reserve the right to do). I’m not declaring for anyone for that job either - until I see the candidates (which is what I more or less said in the last paragraph before this update).

Check out the vblog here at Garry’s blogsite.

PS - I should remind Garry he was an Obama sceptic

With all due respect to Warren, does it really matter THAT much who he endorses, Liberal bloggers? Because, I really am amused by some of the Liberal blogs folks and the attention being hung on every written word of his, trying to get a hint of who he might or might not endorse.

Sales of rifles, pistols and ammo are surging in parts of the United States, as many gun owners fear President-elect Barack Obama’s administration may seek to tighten ownership of certain weapons. “The day after the election, I had many more calls than usual from people looking for semi-automatic rifles,” said David Greenberg, the owner of the Second Amendment Family Gun Shop, in Bisbee, Arizona, who sold out of AR-15 rifles in recent days. “There seems to be a fear they will be banned, and it’s fairly likely,” he added. “Obama and Biden are driven to eliminate firearms from the face of the country.”

This despite Obama and Biden supporting the right to bear arms - but apparently this bit here is what has caused the panic:

Obama stated his support for the right to bear arms during campaigning, although both he and Biden back a permanent ban on assault weapons — military style semi-automatic rifles — and “common sense measures” to keep guns away from children and criminals, positions which spurred concern among some gun enthusiasts.

Yes, it’s just awful that a President might not want kids to get accidentally shot or want to make it harder for criminals to buy assault weapons. My one thought on this is: If Obama really did take the measures that some of these gun nuts fear, then all the guns they are buying would be illegal and they’d have to run them in anyhow. So, why waste the money on a gun and ammo that you’re afraid may be banned? My immediate answer that comes to my head is that some of these folks are probably going to try to pretend they don’t have one of these hypothetical banned weapons and break the hypothetical new law in doing so. A rather glaring contradiction in they’re afraid the 2nd Amendment is being violated, but they’re already blatantly advertising they’d break any new laws that might force to them to give up weapons that only the police or military should be in possession of.

UPDATE @ 2:37pm: More ugliness not unrelated to the above column:

Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign… The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric. But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further. The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.

Interestingly, on their conversation regarding climate change Harper said: “The new president has expressed a desire to participate fully in global efforts to fix the problems of greenhouse gases.” I stress “global” since it appears to be a subtle shift from statements made by the Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon earlier in the week that indicated the Canadian desire to pursue a “North American” approach. My initial concern was that Harper would use some regional scheme to try and rope Obama into following the obstructionist stance he pursued at last year’s UN meetings in Bali. Is Harper’s characterization of Obama’s commitment to “global efforts” an indication that he was cool to the Prime Minister’s position?

That’s a very good question. We probably won’t really know until President-elect Obama is sworn in on January, though as I said, his picks for the EPA and whether or not he decides to add Al Gore in an environmental role in his administration will be telling hints whether he thinks Harper is trying to play games with the environment. Under no circumstances does Harper want Big Oil losing a bit of their multi-billion dollar profits to, you know, actually having to do something substantial to cut down on GHG gases, and have Canada commit to fighting something that is a question still whether Harper actually believes is a problem or not (”so-called Greenhouse Gases”, as he has said).

Personally, I hope Obama and whoever he puts in there - be it Kennedy and/or Gore or others - tells Harper to stick it, and get back to them when you have a real climate change fighting plan, rather then the “complete and utter fraud” of one (quoting Al Gore) that he has put in place now.

UPDATE@ 4:28pm: Good point from my comment section about what Obama is proposing at his change.gov site for the environment:

You might want to take a look at President Elect Obama’a new web site..If Harper has he’s probably having conniption fits already. Not only does Obama’s plan propose a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits in order to give American families tax rebates, he also wants to enact serious cap and trade measures, end American reliance on imported oil (particularly “dirty oil”) and invest in green technologies. The program reads very much like the Green Shift

Those cap and trade measures are calling for GHG emissions to be reduced by 80% when 2050 rolls around. Those aren’t using “intensity targets”, I can tell you. Those are hard caps. I think Harper is going to have a pretty tough time convincing Obama and his administration to exclude the Tarsands from any new US tough climate change laws - when its responsible for a lot of the GHG emitted up here.

Obama said that, if the lame-duck Congress fails to pass a stimulus package before he takes office January 20, passing such a package will be his first move…He said the country must deal with several immediate challenges. Obama said a fiscal stimulus plan to jump-start economic growth is “long overdue.”…The president-elect also said he would make it a high priority to work on additional policy options to help the struggling auto industry.

Note the key phrases; stimulus package, assistance to the auto industry.

It we look at Harper by comparison, has anyone seen or heard him or his finance minister uttering similar phrases or commitments to help out the struggling auto industry specifically, and the manufacturing industry in general in Ontario? Of course you haven’t, other then berating Ontario for not cutting taxes, and belittling Ontario as “the worst place to invest”. On the other hand, the slightest hint that the Alberta tarsands might be punished by potential tough new US climate-change plans and rules, and he’s got half the cabinet working on that (or working to try and get the tarsands exempted from such rules).

I said the same thing yesterday as Excited Delirium does: Obama should tell him “thanks but no thanks” - at least until Canada produces a credible plan that fights climate-change and gets the GHG emitted by the tarsands under control - and intensity targets don’t cut it, as Al Gore once said famously up here.

By the way, I saw on CNN there were/are rumours that Al Gore might be in line for a new “Environmental Czar” position in the Cabinet. If that were to occur, combined with Robert F. Kennedy’s rumoured position at the Environmental Protection Agency, I think Harper would have a pretty tough sell to the Obama administration to exempt the tarsands from any meaningful climate change rules or plans.

Charlie’s occasionally come under some heat from some Obama and Democratic Party supporters in the past, but I think what he says starting at about 1:03 into this about what is said in the US Declaration of Independence, and how Obama’s election has helped bring Americans closer to the meaning of the document, is probably what has stuck with me from everything I heard that night from several networks as I watched it; a very honest assessment from Charlie on everything that has happened over the course of US history and with respect to equality.

Well said, Charlie.

Canada’s environmental record is among the worst in the industrialized world, due in part to its poor performance fighting global warming, according to a report from the Conference Board of Canada on Monday. Canada placed 15th among 17 peers, beating only Australia and the United States. Greenhouse gas emissions, high garbage production, and rampant overuse of fresh water were its biggest environmental problems.

Note that this isn’t some world study berating us, but the Conference Board of Canada. Last I looked, it wasn’t being run by any environmentalist types either. Of course, I don’t expect Harper to pay much heed to this report. Indeed, we read today he is trying to more or less bribe the new President-elect into exempting the Alberta Tarsands from any tough new environmental laws or restrictions in exchange for offering a “secure” North American supply - which I find a bit odd to be offering, since I don’t think what oil Canada is already offering to the US is an “insecure” supply. We’re bound by the NAFTA agreement to supply oil to the US no matter what, so this just seems to be nothing more then an attractive phrasing of words designed to play on Obama’s pledge to stop depending on insecure sources of oil such as the Middle East.

Of course, Obama also doesn’t want to depend on “dirty oil” either, and the Alberta Tarsands have specifically been pointed to as an example of this by Obama’s advisers. I’d take a guess as well that if Robert Kennedy Jr is offered the post of the Environmental Protection Agency, based on his past environmental record, you won’t find him advising Obama to take Harper up on his offer, which more or less gives the Tarsands a free pass, which is what Harper wants.

I would urge Obama not to fall for this Trojan Horse of an offer. Under Harper, Canada is shirking its world environmental responsibilities, and until we get rid of this government, it’s going to stay that way. It will take external pressure - like our biggest oil customer refusing to buy oil from a source that has no credible climate change fighting plan - to force Harper to deal with this and to put forth a credible GHG emissions plan.

UPDATE: The Jurist has similar thoughts.