The only DEAD newspaper is a FEXLESS newspaper : the Halifax Metro ignores Merkel's Halifax visit !

LAMEST daily ever ?

How lame must a daily newspaper be to ignore a well-publicized  major news story in its own backyard ? After all aren't the news-o-saurs always reminding us bloggers that we only comment on the hard news that their fearless reporters dig up ?

But there it was , for all the world to see , the Halifax METRO exposing its inner failings as shamelessly as any ex-porn star seeking air time for their bio-pic.

Chancellor Merkel - de facto leader of the Euro currency group currently undergoing a meltdown of global depression proportions : by any definition, her every doings are eminently a top news subject.

Making probably her only ever visit to your medium sized backwater city.

So, on your front page the next day, a big splash story on Merkel and a nice photograph.

Great !  Well done !

Except : both were pulled off the wire from the Canadian Press agency, ie filed by somebody else.

In your own home town --- your rare chance within the world-wide METRO news organization to see a Halifax story go worldwide - handed over to strangers, on a platter.

Shameful ! Disgusting ! Lazy ! Slack-assed !

I have said it before : 97% of "news" originates when someone wants reportage on an event, for their own purposes, and details the story to all the press.

The only "digging up" usually done consists in finding one or two unique tidbits, to make your story stand out from the rest of your competitors.

Like the Halifax METRO staffers, I too live in Halifax.

I offer up my "blogged" articles about Merkel's education versus Harper's education here, here, here and here.

They, I think, help explain these fellow conservatives wildly varying stances on on climate change :  top warmist vs arch denier.

I think they provided a lot more "hard news" on Merkel's  freelance visit to a climate change project in Halifax, than whatever this sad-assed sorry excuse of a daily newspaper did.

Here's a  real hard news fact : the local alternative newspaper THE COAST generates more words of local reporting in a once a week publication than the Halifax METRO does in a week of daily reporting. How lame is that ?

"The only GOOD newspaper, is a DEAD newspaper...." 

Well ,that is not my saying or my belief - but at times like this, I am sorely tempted to subscribe to it .....

When WARMIST Merkel meets SKEPTIC Harper global temp goes up one degree !

Harper's only LIFESKILL

Half remembered high school science (of the outdated Victorian era variety) goes up against a recent PhD in 21st century level Quantum Science, when fellow conservatives Stephen Harper and Angela Merkel meet this week in Ottawa.

Despite being fellow conservatives, the two are better known for their differences than for their similarities.

Harper is the world's best known climate denying leader --- a man willing to slash and burn his way through Canada's scientific community to get his way.

Frankly, because Harper has never held a real job - never held a job that might involve technology, so he simply doesn't get this 'science thing'.

All his jobs have required him to display his considerable skills in ideology and rhetoric.

Just don't expect him to know how to change a tire, a diaper or boil an egg : don't expect him to knowingly engage real life.

Quantum scientist versus a guy who has never held a real job

Merkel knows enough science to know she - and humanity - actually knows very little with any great certainty.

She accepts that current climate science is our best current take on complex climate changes and she is always willing to throw in more money to let the climate scientists get better takes on reality.

As a result, she is number one in credibility among the world's scientists when she speaks up publicly in favour of the reality of climate change, as she does frequently.

Harper thinks we have had all the answers since the days of Newton, Dalton and Darwin and we should have shut off the research money tap on Jan 1 1900.

So when they try and talk in private, sparks fly and heat is given off but neither bends the other's mind.

Too bad that instead of cutting the ice loss over the Arctic, all these talks will do is raise tempers and temperatures and so MELT more arctic ice.....

Merkel world's first "Post-Victorian Science" leader ?

Merkel gets it !

Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel has a PhD in Quantum Chemistry* and worked as a  quantum researcher, publishing several peer-reviewed articles in that science.This means that she knows almost nothing ----- and accepts that she knows almost nothing ---- about the fundamental nature of Reality.

She radiates humility.

By contrast, almost all of the rest of the world's leaders (and not just in politics either) have a few snoozed-through classes in Victorian (aka anti-quantum) science at their High School under their scientific belt.

As a result they honestly believe that they have a firm handle on who controls Reality and that the name of that "who" is Man.

Unlike Merkel, most world leaders think they already know everything about anything : a happy by-product of a high school education in Victorian Science

They ooze hubris into the atmosphere --- guised as CO2.

No wonder then that Merkel  (aka "the traitor-warmist" to most on the Right)  understands that our climate is changing into an enormous disaster zone and that we need Post-Victorian Science employed full bore, to save us from our Victorian-Scientific selves.....

* Investigation of the mechanism of decay reactions with single bond breaking and calculation of their velocity constants on the basis of quantum chemical and statistical methods

Margaret Thatcher was also famous as a chemist cum political leader. But she got only a second class honors BSc and that during WWII ----she then worked briefly - and fittingly - in plastics, by far the most MODERNISTIC of industries.

By education and inclination , Thatcher's science was of a Victorian nature.

Perhaps the most useful thing a scientific biographer could do to help save this planet is to prepare a joint  scientific  biography of Thatcher and Merkel, contrasting how their differing science educations influenced their very different politics, though both are conservative and women.

Merkel "betrays" fellow conservative Harper with visit to Halifax climate change project

Harper ain't Happy !

HALIFAX - Privately, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his fellow Conservatives are said to be livid over Germany Chancellor Merkel's freelance visit to Dalhousie University to see the launch of a climate change study --- but in public it is all "sunshine and smiles".

Officially, Merkel is merely visiting Halifax's Dalhousie University to help launch a joint project on climate change between Dalhousie's Marine Research Institute and the German Helmholtz Association --- a job usually left for an official from the German Embassy in Ottawa to perform.

But Merkel has always made it clear that resource-poor and now population-poor Germany can only survive by (a) using its brains - ie science and (b) using those brains on up and coming global issues before others  see the future opportunity.

 And in practise, that means above all else, being there first on energy shortages and climate change. 

By contrast, Harper is a Calgary-based MP and has always ensured his own personal re-election by working tirelessly to see that his governing party is nothing more than mere putty in the hands of  Canada's massive Calgary-based Oil industry.

Under his watch, Canada's Conservatives have become the world's first governing "fossil energy lobby group".

He himself is one of the world's biggest and most tireless (tiresome ?) climate deniers but is not content, like most of them, to merely rant against the climate in a blog.

Harper has taken positive steps to kill the climate debate in Canada : conducting extensive witch hunts and mass firings throughout Canada's scientific community.

In fairness, Mr Harper has shown some restraint : he hasn't yet ordered any 'hits' on pesky climate change supporters.

But his trigger finger must really be twitching this week over the fact that Ms Merkel's highly public pro-climate change action is taking place in his own 'hood. De Capo is not pleased !

Harper hates warmist 'traitors' in his family of fellow conservatives.

But fortunately for the German Chancellor, Harper and Canadian Conservatives are also, and not so secretly , 'loving' the way that Merkel has slapped down those dark and swarthy Dagos from Greece and Spain over their financial deficits.

This fact has restrained Harper and his cabinet cronies from publicly launching their normal full-press character assassination on anyone who dares oppose them.

Still the anger must go somewhere -no wonder then that extra amounts of high blood pressure pills had to be delivered to this week's Cabinet meeting, as a medical precaution...