Toronto, Canada Debate on Immigration

In Canada they have real debates, unlike the United States. The UK broadcasts real questioning of the Prime Minister by the House of Commons on C-Span, unlike the US head of government who hides behind controlled press conferences. Spirited debate if you have an interest in the issue. It also shows how academics, Columbia University professor Simon Schama, uses illogical arguments. It is not clear if he supports immigration intellectually or for political reasons. 

http://www.c-span.org/video/?407440-1/munk-debate-global-refugee-crisis

[About 90 minutes]

APRIL 1, 2016
Munk Debate on Global Refugee Crisis Nigel Farage, Mark Steyn, Louise Arbour, and Simon Schama participated in the semi-annual Munk Debate on how developed nations should deal with the global refugee crisis.

Mark Steyn Stands Up To Climate Bullies, Exposes Their Fake Science

[From article]
Mann obliterated two mainstays of traditional climate science: the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. In the opinion of many eminent scientists, this feat was accomplished by employing dubious statistical analysis, by using and even manipulating scanty tree-ring evidence, and by tacking on actual thermometer readings for recent times to tree-ring proxy data that was largely employed to erase significant climate variations in the past. These methodological shenanigans resulted in the apocalyptic headline that summarized the Mann-dominated IPCC report of 2001, namely, that 1998 was “likely” the warmest year in the warmest decade in the warmest century of the past 1,000 years -- a headline gobbled up by lazy and politically-motivated climate journalists.
[. . .]


Mark Steyn

As a closing bonus, Steyn explains the origin of the “97% of all scientists” mantra that Mann and President Obama confidently throw around whenever the “settled science” of climate change is at issue. Short story shorter: 97% comes from a survey conducted for a thesis by a University of Illinois graduate student who, having received 3,146 responses to a two-question online questionnaire sent to 10,257 earth scientists, eventually identified 77 “experts” of which 75 (97%) were found to agree with the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis. There’s no word as yet on the identity and views of the other 10,180.
[. . .]
Steyn, National Review, et al. are being sued for defamation by the aforementioned Dr. Mann. In other words, true to form, Mann is using intimidation to silence critics. Specifically, the legal case concerns a National Review blog post dated July 15, 2012, in which Steyn quotes aerospace engineer Rand Simberg’s negative comments about the Penn State hockey-stick inventor, including the remark that Mann has become “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science.” Steyn proceeds in a mere 147 words to distance himself somewhat from Simberg’s metaphor, to identify Mann as “the man behind the fraudulent ‘hockey-stick’ graph,” and to note that the same college president who “declined to find one of its star names [Paterno] guilty of any wrongdoing” and who was forced to resign over the Sandusky scandal also oversaw the exculpatory investigation of Mann after the “Climategate” emails were made public.



The fact that this speech-suppressing defamation suit in the D.C. courts has been going on for years without media outrage clearly shows that Steyn’s derogatory book title applies to American journalists and courts as much as to the now-greatly-diminished Penn State climatologist.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/09/steyn_puts_warmists_in_the_dock.html

September 19, 2015
Steyn puts Warmists in the Dock
By Richard Kirk

Mark Steyn Free Speech Warrior, Fighting For Your Rights

[From article]
I have learned over the years to have a particular contempt for serial litigants who never show up for their own cases. One of the reasons I worked so hard in Canada to get the Section 13 "hate speech" law repealed (which it now is) was that over a 15-year period the plaintiff on every single case was a man called Richard Warman. Yet he never once appeared in court - unlike the mostly poor and unrepresented defendants. To reprise my old line, the process is the punishment - and Warman was not a genuine plaintiff, but merely a man who loosed the process upon others and then got on with his life while they were ensnared in a time-consuming savings-draining nightmare.

http://www.steynonline.com/6680/where-steyn-goes-no-mann-goes

Where Steyn Goes, No Mann Goes
by Mark Steyn

November 25, 2014

Defamation Suit For Claim Climate Change Data Is Fraudulent

[From article]
The case stems from Mr. Steyn’s written reference to Michael Mann’s climate change data as fraudulent, according to news website Raw Story.
Of especial ire to Mr. Mann was that Mr. Steyn quoted Competitive Enterprise Institution analyst Rand Simberg, who compared Mr. Mann to convicted Penn State child molester Jerry Sandusky.
Mr. Simberg called Mr. Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.”
[. . .]
Mr. Steyn is representing himself after firing the magazine’s legal team over a dispute related to how the judge was handling the case.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/31/climate-scientist-case-against-national-review-go-/

Defamation suit against Mark Steyn, National Review a go, judge says
Friday, January 31, 2014
By Cheryl K. Chumley
The Washington Times

Prepare For Thy Doom, Book Review

Book Review
After America
By Mark Steyn
Regnery Publishing, Inc.
Washington DC
2011

In this excellent book Mark Steyn reveals some of the irrational programs, policies, and public discourse we see and hear from politicians and their misguided supporters. His treatment is hilarious and deadly serious making me laugh out loud more than once on a one page. He begins early with the observation that "A society can cope with corroded infrastructure and a devalued currency more easily than with corroded liberty and a devalued citizenry." He asks "If the political class plus their dependents in the media and academy have disconnected themselves from the animating principles of the American idea, then what is the point of America?"

Steyn observes that "the whole disease curing industry has ground to a halt." He reports how Obama directed NASA to become a diversity outreach consultant. "What's 'foremost' for NASA is to make Muslims 'feel good' about their contributions to science." That explains why the schools are now used for psychiatric treatment, and why teaching basic skills are no longer a priority. Is there any wonder how Obama was elected twice?

"[W]hen it happens incrementally, and apparently painlessly, free peoples who were once willing to give their lives for liberty can be persuaded very easily to relinquish their liberties for a quiet life. [. . .] The story of the western world since 1945 is that, invited to choose between freedom and government 'security,' large numbers of people vote to dump freedom every time [. . .] and eventually [. . .] what you're permitted to say and think."

A reader of his previous book, America Alone, wrote saying "we're rich enough to be stupid." Steyn says that is the "sun-dappled complacency of idle-trust-funders whiling away the sixth year of of Whatever Studies. But it's an accurate distillation of a dominant world view. Since 9/11, there have been many citations, apropos radical Islam, of Churchill's observation that an appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping he'll eat him last." Steyn notes that "Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, we have been less rich. But, if anything, even more stupid."

He repeats a"basic rule of life: If you reward bad behavior, you get more of it." He notes the fact that "among America's elite, there are many non political members, comfortable, educated beneficiaries of the American Dream who just want to get on with their lives. For these people and many others, liberalism is the soft option, the one with all the nice words-- 'diversity,' 'tolerance,' 'peace,' 'social justice,' 'sustainability,' --and the position that requires the least defending if you happen to be at a dinner party and the conversation trends toward current events. If you have to have opinions these are the safe ones. They're not really 'opinions,' these are the safe ones."

Continuing his rational analysis of the dangerous path the United States is on, Steyn says, "In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury wrote: ' If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him: give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag.

Climate change? It's not a question, and there aren't two sides: there's the side of 'the environment,' then there's the 'deniers.' Illegal immigration? There's the side of 'diversity,' and then there's the racists. From kindergarten up, America's 'educators' teach their young charges the no-side buzz-words: Peace Montag. The seductive peace of comfort and complacency."

You may get the idea of how he discusses numerous wrongheaded contemporary beliefs held by many citizens. He uses logic and humor to draw attention to them. One problem is that for many young college age people there is no history. Two weeks ago is ancient to them. Moreover they often ask, "What is logic?" Lacking common sense it is difficult for them to see the error of their beliefs. Few power hungry politicians and few money hungry corporations will dissuade them from their misguided beliefs. Steyn tries to do that.

--