The intellectual power of a dead tree stump ... and a wide open net.

Whoa! What's this?!
Watch and listen very closely ...



I n t e r e s t i n g !!!

Here's the thing ... I agree with him ... completely. The anti-vaccine movement is a crowd of dangerous, self-absorbed, selfish, dilettantes who, devoid of any scientific training or knowledge, have positioned themselves as "experts". They are no such thing and Murphy is quite correct in pointing that out.

In fact, Murphy is so right on this one that he just shot off his own foot. Murphy regularly spouts off as one of the leaders of the climate-change denial faction. To use the same facetious tone as Murphy himself employed, whenever people seek climate science guidance from the likes of Murphy or his fellow geo-scientists in media punditry, they've confessed to having the intellectual power of a dead tree stump.

Murphy couldn't complete the first line of a climate formula. He has a degree in English. We don't need Murphy's stamp of approval to determine which science to accept and which to ignore. Murphy represents a movement of dangerous, self-absorbed, dilettantes, devoid of any scientific training or knowledge, who have positioned themselves as "experts".

Murphy needs to heed his own words and start taking his own advice.

Ineffably Stupid

That is how an analyst once described the writing of Rex Murphy. Murphy, in his latest pronouncement on Neil Young's position on the tar sands, proves nothing has changed.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: Rock stars, is there anything they don't know?

That's just the start of Murphy's diatribe and you could probably quit reading right there. Murphy, who regularly expounds on topics on which he is bereft of education and without a scintilla of fact, just used the words of an imaginary cartoon character to call out Neil Young for having no knowledge.

However, Murphy is well-known for being welcome at the campfire of Big Oil. He shills for them with great regularity and even performed for them at the University of Calgary where he presented an uninformed, uneducated, deceitfully headlined speech called Climate Change 101. (A subject in which Murphy has no expertise and presented without a single actual credible scientist in the room).

So, let's compare Murphy's criticisms of Neil Young with Murphy himself.

Homer's truth rang out again when I heard Neil Young — expatriate, now California-based rock immortal — staggeringly claim that the Fort McMurray oil site reminded him of atomic-bomb-blasted Hiroshima.

OK, we get that Murphy is a Homer Simpson fan, but the fact that a Canadian lives in California is relevant, how? Murphy is trying to make a point that if you don't live north of the US border that, even if you visit the tar sands, you can't actually see them. And what is just so staggering about a vast manufactured wasteland which is visible from the International Space Station being compared with a similar, but much smaller, level of devastation?

Now, we can forgive minor sins in any propaganda war — and there is a propaganda war circling the oil sands. But to offer an equivalence, and repeat it, with the horror, mass obliteration and deaths of Hiroshima, goes so far outside all boundaries of good taste, truth, judgment and proportion as to be unfathomably irresponsible.

Unfathomably? Remember when Murphy wrote this? He tore into Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins for being "angry". He even invented words to describe their very thoughts. The only problem was, Murphy had never interviewed them. And it was a subject with which he was utterly uninformed because it dealt with the counselling of soldiers in combat. It wasn't even a Canadian issue; it dealt solely with the U.S. military. All told there were at least three subjects on which Murphy had no knowledge, either directly or via competent research, yet he opined at length on the pages of a Canadian daily. Irresponsible? Many American commentators suggested that and much more. And as for "propaganda", Murphy should remain silent on such pointed utterances of the word when referring to anyone but himself.

... one-sided and over-toxic condemnations amplified by the voice of a rock star are not that discussion. Mr. Young has failed to be fair, and thereby he fails also to be persuasive.

The master of uninformed, one-sided, over-toxic condemnation so says. And once again Murphy highlights Neil Young's legacy of fame as having no value. So, how does Murphy stack up? Not well.

Murphy is a three-times failed political candidate and an apparent opportunist. He has run for both Progressive Conservative and Liberal parties in Newfoundland and was rejected by voters. He speaks and writes at length on the evils of climate-change science vociferously claiming he is not a denier, but a skeptic, without the benefit of having ever actually having read the science or having demonstrated any ability whatsoever to do any of the basic math associated with climate science. Still, university chancellors have tripped over their own gowns conferring honourary degrees on him for whatever reason and Murphy gains access to university audiences to speak on topics completely beyond his realm of education.

That would make him that much more special than Neil Young if it weren't for one small fact: Neil Young has honourary degrees too.

More than one reviewer of Murphy's downward spiral has suggested that he attempts to cover his irrelevance with polysyllabic gobbledygook. One of them, Robert Miller, struck home when he inferred that Murphy's so-called eloquence is actually little more than a poor attempt at imitating Mark Twain ... and Mark Twain would not be pleased. (Read Twain's 19 rules, but read 13 and 14 particularly closely).

I can sum this up with a quote directed at Murphy, once again from G. Robert M. Miller:  ...you’re too juvenile and too poorly read to write on this subject, and so you shouldn’t. At the very least, Murphy is in no position to pass critical judgement on a host of subjects in which he proclaims, but cannot substantiate, superior knowledge. That includes tackling Neil Young.

Jesse Staniforth brutally rips Rex Murphy a new one ...

And a very well-deserved one it is.

Rex Murphy's opinion piece isn't just ignorant, it's totally vacuous, the product of someone who literally seems to know nothing about the subject he's railing against.

But then, there's the rub. Murphy is educated in the art of the word; not the projection of knowledge. He is the perfect right-wing shill, bereft of information, ignorant of history and mortally afraid of scientific fact. Murphy's way of dealing with the discomfort of science and now, history, is to simply deny it and invent a simplistic, emotional and inaccurate cultural meme to fill the vacuum between the ears of the Harperite base which forms his constituency.

Murphy: Harper is as bad as all preceding prime ministers ... at their worst.

I don't pay much attention to Rex Murphy. While able to wax eloquent on most any topic, that is, in my opinion, his only strength. He calls himself a "skeptic" on the topic of global warming. I submit that an earth scientist is a skeptic on that subject; Murphy is a denier by any test and unqualified to assess the science of climatology.

He is, however, qualified to opine on topics political. We all are.

The problem with Murphy is that he sprays himself with the same eau de toilette when pontificating on Canadian politics as he does when he spouts on about things climatological. He attempts to portray himself as a pundit with no particular champion to promote.

I have never accepted that premise and Murphy's latest defence of Stephen Harper is sufficient enough evidence to impeach Murphy as a Harper flack.

Read it at your leisure. Try not to vomit while absorbing Murphy's new definition of tinkering.

Then read James Morton, who makes the singular point which underscores the salient feature of the Harper government: ... at best Murphy's argument suggests the Conservatives have been corrupted by power and corrupted badly.

Murphy's assertion that Harper has never showed the kind of disrespect for MP's (and by extension the electorate) as that of Pierre Trudeau is laughable. Setting aside the fact that the reason Harper's government fell in March 2011 was because it was found in contempt of parliament, Harper is smart enough to know that Trudeau's exhibited arrogance was unpalatable to almost all Canadians.

When Harper wants to smear somebody or demonstrate his contempt, he has somebody else do it for him.

Rex Murphy pulls out your mother's answer to everything

There he is. A loser.

How many times have you been in an argument with your spouse, partner or the like and heard the words,  "Yeah. Whatever?"

How many times have your been bent over on an issue and heard the word from a parent or an acquaintance. "Who cares?"

Your mother. When you've left her with no place to go; totally out-argued her, she says, "Who cares?"

You care, of course. That's why you're arguing your point. Her answer actually means, "You know so much more about this than I can even fathom that I must invoke my superior parental position and indicate that I have much more important things to do, and this discussion is over."

That's what Rex Murphy has just tried to pull off.

Coming from a knob who thinks that if it snows in Vancouver that global warming is a hoax, he's in about the same league as my mother.

Here's one for Murphy.

I care.

Murphy would have spent three weeks scripting his most eloquent praises of a Harper government if Canada had actually assumed its traditional seat on the UN Security Council. He would have lavished imaginary and undeserved accolades on the Alberta separatist as though the little boy had pulled off some magnificent feat of diplomatic prowess.

Instead we get: Who cares?

Loser.

I care.

I dislike to this day the only argument my mother could pull out in a discussion that was clearly beyond her depth, knowing the only reason she did it is because she didn't want the other party, (me) to be held out as the winner.

So, Murphy, accept your new position. Nothing but a loud, half-neutered steer in the middle of the field making loud noises that do nothing more than irritate those within earshot.

Loser.

Hard to believe you fought to have your education paid for by the public. If we had known what it might produce there might have been second thoughts by your supporters.

And if you need to know more, Sister Sage has summed it up very nicely.

Removing democratic rights, one summit at a time.

I agree with The Jurist. Linda McQuaig hits the nail squarely on the head.

But there are others who are so passionate about the fate of the Earth that they feel compelled to do more than shop. They want to object, to let world leaders know they disapprove. These are the types of people who plan to protest at the G20 summit later this month in Toronto.

If you're thinking they're just violent troublemakers, you've probably been listening too closely to the Harper government, which is hoping you'll succumb to its attempt to lump terrorists and peaceful protestors all together in one giant bin marked scary and anti-democratic.

One of the most difficult things to accept, as McQuaig points out, is the surrender of one of this country's leading universities to the squelch-knob twisting of the Harperites and the loss of a venue from which to challenge the so-often wrong-headed direction of establishment figures out to develop an agenda without opposition.

The University of Toronto, falling in line with this new security-state mentality, plans to lock down its main campus during the summit, forcing the cancellation of G20 related events, including one featuring Maude Barlow, Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein.

It's hard to imagine a more inappropriate response. Universities should be centres of critical thought, where students are encouraged to scrutinize the current orthodoxy and challenge the Establishment. That's hard to do when they shutter their doors at the first whiff of controversy.

You may not like protesters and you may find the anti-establishment crowd occasionally uncomfortable, but the alternative, opposition brutally silenced on the altar of "good order" (as defined by the silencers themselves) is completely unacceptable.

Now, before some semi-literate knob goes off half-cocked in the comment section, let's clear up one thing. I do not and never will support the so-called anarchists whose street antics during a protest include wanton damage to property and/or physical injury to others. Engaging in such activity is little more than gang violence and, as we have now seen demonstrated in the recent past, something readily provoked by police and government to justify the use of weapons on all forms of protest, peaceful or otherwise.

Better that the cop using the pepper spray be highlighted as having no justification for ever doing so.

McQuaig's column quite properly takes aim at the egregious rantings of Rex Murphy who, from his privileged platform, decided that a pre-emptive smear was in order.

Finally, from Seattle to Quebec City to Toronto next month, who really "owns" these summits? With the leaders invisible under their security blankets, they belong to the protestors. Summits are the high holy days, the carnival of ritual protest and vacuous street theatre. You can't hold a global anything these days, even a joyful event like the Olympics, without the tired kabuki of protest groups jamming the streets, shouting their impenetrable litany of anti-everything, accompanied, of course, by the usual band of black masked pseudo-anarchists allergic to Starbucks and thirsty for the two-day fame a little provocation or a lot of violence can bring them. The leaders own the meetings; the protestors own the cameras.

This is the same Rex Murphy who doesn't like it when he is called what he is to his face. This is the same Rex Murphy who denies global warming exists, questions science he won't or cannot understand and then tries to define himself as an educated "skeptic". Yet, without an attributable scientific fact to support his "skepticism", he protests. Protest is fine by Murphy, it would seem, as long as it suits his particular agenda done in his own particular way - electronically broadcast right across the country. Immediately followed by an injection into his bank account.

Should he be stopped? Perish the thought! Murphy, no less than any other protester, represents a point of view and it would be as damaging to democracy to silence him as it would be for a university to close their doors to a meeting which questions the actions of a government peddling right-wing ideology. And while Murphy continues to bleat unchecked, a university caves in to the jack-boot security requirements of the Harper government.

Instead of complaining about such protest one would expect the likes of Rex Murphy to stand and scream from the rooftops of the CBC and National Post that the lock-down of the U of Toronto campus to satisfy the Harper "security" demands is not only an affront to democratic freedom but extremely dangerous. One would expect a Rhodes scholar like Murphy to immediately pick up on such suppression of free expression and point directly at another time in history where the universities toed the government line. By the time they realized what a mistake it had been to submit to the security-state it was far too late. Far from protesting for the cameras, the distribution of one-page pamphlets demanding liberty were getting the university-resident authors sent to the guillotine.

You would expect the likes of Rex Murphy to know the story of the White Rose and issue loud public warnings when a government so vilifies protest that the universities start closing their halls to themselves.

You would expect it. You would, however, be disappointed.

The shine seems to be wearing off...

Who would say such a thing about the Stephen Harper party?

They are not good at reaching out. They are not good at broadening the tent. They are not good at getting beyond the bristling, mean way they view everyone who is an opponent. Even after their victories - they are in power, remember - the Conservatives of the Stephen Harper party, still radiate the sullenness of a party denied, a party - even though it is in power, is making the big calls, setting the agenda - nursing a sense of injury that they haven't been fully acknowledged, fully appreciated for the wonderful folks they are.

Can they not at least understand that it is precisely this attitude, more than any other factor, that has kept them frozen in the polls near the low 30s - that has denied them any measurable, sustained growth - from the moment of their first victory?

It comes mainly from the edgy, mean spirit that predominates in how they choose to present themselves. We saw it in the attempts to cut public financing for political parties last December. Any chance to kneecap their opponents and Mr. Harper's men start to salivate. It was surely present in the blitz of attack ads on Mr. Dion, which were unnecessary, and mean. Whatever those ads did to undermine the already weak Stéphane Dion is debatable. What is not debatable is how much they underlined the Conservatives', and Mr. Harper's, mean streak. There is some quality of the Conservative Party that gives the impression that they are always just about to have a temper tantrum.

Rex Murphy, that's who.

Funny... Murphy used to think Harper and his pack of rabid animals was the neatest thing since sliced bread.

But, like a kid who is completely enthralled by the bright, shiney, toy electric train when he first opened the box, Murphy has become tired and fed up with the fact that it's the same thing, going around in a circle, and he can't seem to find any track that will fit to make it bigger and better.

The Harper party will always be like the little toy train on a circular track: capable of very little and simply repeating its route.

Many of us had that figured out ages ago, Rex. We've known that Harper and his reformers were no different than the nasty southern US Republicans on which they modelled themselves. We knew it before they ever gained power.

What took you so long?

Australia is burning

You know it's hot when a Koala decides to crawl out of a Eucalyptus tree in favour of someone's out building.

Mind you any smart Koala would want to get clear of a tree which not only sucks up tremendous amounts of water but has been known to explode when the temperature gets too high. (On a hot day the blue Eucalyptus gas haze overcomes the Oz landscape).

You don't have to take my word for it. Ask Rex.

If you listen to him, this isn't happening because it snowed in Vancouver.