I can't figure out governments in this country anymore. The other day I was Praising Baird for his Kyoto paper, The Cost of Bill C-288 to Canadian Families and Business. But yesterdays nonsense makes no sense to me, especially considering the opposition for C-288 put forth by the environment ministry. Last week Baird was suggesting the costs of Kyoto would be onerous, this week he started imposing costs. 
The environment ministry is becoming the ministry of whack-a-mole (or is that ministry of whack-a-prairie dog?), bashing away here, then there... no up there.
This seems to me a simple problem. You believe global warming is on, it's man-made and it is a looming catastrophe, or you don't. If you believe all three parts of the first statement, then you do anything - ANYTHING - to solve the problem. If you don't believe all three parts of that statement, then you do nothing, because there is no problem to solve. Half measures make no sense. And what John Baird is doing is half measures.
Which is it John Baird?
Then there's the Liberals in Toronto. What ever came over them to release the FLICK OFF campaign. (Notice, by the way, you don't need a fancy font. Use almost any font, type it in caps, it looks like what it's supposed to look like.) If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:
Never mind complaints about prissy indignation, it is entirely inappropriate for a government to be putting together this kind of vulgar campaign. The government should, and must, be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. They should be raising the level of debate, not lowering it.
But what boggles is, did they ever think this would be OK? As the Post points out "...the premier's office thinks parents who find this campaign offensive lack a sense of humour -- that they are just not with it." Did they not realize this would be a problem? Or have they become so removed from reality, that it never occurred to anyone this would be a problem? If that is so, this group needs to be removed from office quick. If only there was somebody, anybody else to vote for.
Oh, and memo to a couple of children of my acquaintance. Telling your dear old dad to FLICK OFF at any time, for any reason, government approved or not, is hereby added to your "I really don't recommend it" list.
Never mind complaints about prissy indignation, it is entirely inappropriate for a government to be putting together this kind of vulgar campaign. The government should, and must, be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. They should be raising the level of debate, not lowering it.
