Corrections ...

From Denis Rancourt

Re: "Between Rock and ... well you know ..."

That is so great. VERY funny. Made my difficult day so much better.

It might be best to correct a few facts however:

The post of Legal Counsel remained empty for a long time after Flaherty's departure (six months or more?) but the post is now filled by TWO legals (that's a first):
http://web5.uottawa.ca/admingov/staff.html

Benoit was an Associate Legal Counsel who filled in during part of the void that was left after Flaherty left.

It gets better: Flaherty became a Vice-Chair (Judge!) for the newly revamped OHRT. Ahemm.

The student complaint was the second fabrication of this type:
http://uofowatch.blogspot.com/2007/07/did-dean-lie-profs-union-doesnt-want-to.html

Note also that there were student feedback not happy about my one course used to fire me (Solid State Physics, winter-2008). These students were not happy about the teaching method. There were three students giving this type of feedback to the Dean out of 24 in the class and I have made all this public here:
http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/background/documentary-record.html
(under: Dismissal Book -- contains supporting documents for Lalonde's letter; index to the book is found at the end of Lalonde's letter. [Download: Docs 1-14 * Docs 15-28 * Docs 29-38], you can find the student letters that were later shown to be encouraged by the Dean...)

I would not call these expressions "complaints" because the students were not asking for anything, just bitching... These were the first such emails in my entire career.

YYC: Thanks, Denis. That's the problem with media - they never get things right!

Between Rock and ... well, you know ...

Former Liberal politician, Allan Rock, no sooner having recreated himself as President of the University of Ottawa, summarily new-broomed a long-time, highly respected, tenured physics professor, Denis Rancourt, right out the door. In fact, Rancourt risks being arrested if he steps foot on campus property. What was his sin? He dared to step out of the academic mold by actually taking the university up on its stated offer of academic freedom, as interpreted by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT).

He wanted to turn his little corner of the university into an agora where personal responsibility and science could meet, where members of the community at large could mingle with registered students to blend the benefits of life experience with new ideas. He wanted to show how science has affected community life around the globe and created moral dilemmas. He wanted less emphasis on grades and more emphasis on doing and thereby learning. He wanted to create individual thinkers rather than simply bend minds in expedient directions.

People molded by authoritarian backgrounds, however - among students, teachers, administrators alike - have difficulty comprehending such an open concept.

In fact, it turns out that terms like "academic freedom" and "collegiality" are merely ancient ideals that do not exist in practice in your average cookie-cutter "education" mill, where the concept of "morality" is assigned a much lower priority than obedience to a top-down, rules-based administration. My way or the highway, so to speak.

How to deal with such an upstart? You start by finding whatever fault you can, which is not easy when the upstart has an excellent reputation and enthusiastic student and community support. You accuse him of illegally using freely available university images on a blog, for instance, which blog just happens to be critical of the university administration. Had he praised the university and its president, no problem with using the images.

Then you find a student whose words you can interpret as a complaint against the teacher, ignoring the student's later written denial that any complaint was made.

But all that is just build-up. If you're Allan Rock, you eventually fall back on government (and corporate sweatshop) tactics. You find a real suck-up, in this case a student named Maureen Robinson, who is willing to take money to infiltrate and spy. (Her family must be so proud of her.)

You have her report to a cloak-and-dagger minded Science Dean named Andre Lalonde while showing her on the books as being employed by the legal department, and before long you've desecrated what was intended to be a temple of learning.

Eventually you're cranking out sneaky little toadies with criminal minds, mini Enronites, future minions of the new tradition of sleaze in higher places. Which is what comes of allowing a politician to head up an "educational" institution - the government/corporate disease goes pandemic.

It gets even murkier. At an arbitration hearing early on, when some of the lead players were different, information surfaced that indicated the Israel Lobby may have played a part in the censure of Denis Rancourt.

Then, in March 2008, according to Rancourt Ottawa U's Legal Counsel, Michelle Flaherty, made a sudden exit from her job, so hasty it precluded the usual formal niceties observed when colleagues move on to other pastures. That was around the same time that a crucial surveillance tape (shades of Watergate) went missing. Around the same time as well, communications between Maureen Robinson and Dean Lalonde abruptly ended. Flaherty was followed out the door in very short order by faculty lawyer Louis R. Benoit who had stepped in briefly to fill her shoes.

It seems probable that both lawyers fully expected a complaint to be made to the Law Society of Upper Canada - if not to the police - and may well have aimed to create the impression that they hadn't known what was going on and, when apprised of certain activities carried out by others under the ostensible aegis of the legal department, voluntarily removed themselves from the scene of the crime, thereby hoping to mitigate any consequences. I'm told the position of Legal Counsel remains vacant. Too hot a seat to sit in?

Rancourt is considering all avenues, but at the moment is focusing on a civil law suit against former Physics Department Chairman Richard Hodgson for allegedly fabricating the student complaint that was used in his dismissal, the one the student denied in a letter of her own, but which was never mentioned in the media.

The weirdest thing about Allan Rock is that when he was a student at Ottawa U. he was involved in student activism, and when he was hired as president it was said of him that he had an affinity with activism. Apparently not with Activist Teachers, however.

Here's everything you need to know about the legality of recording private conversations in Canada. By the way, a prayer to God is not a communication, legally speaking, so be careful what you tell the man upstairs.

NOTE: Denis Rancourt provided some clarifications to this story.

Learn more about Rancourt's dismissal; see videos: here and here.

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Thanks to reader John in Manitoba, who comments: "Now here is a quote I can live with."

"Politicians and Diapers, both need to be changed often, and for the same reason." Rumormill News

SAY WHUT?

(1) Court lingo

Judge loosens leash on [Mohamed] Mahjoub

Terrorism suspect has right to run errands and pray at a nearby mosque without having federal agents shadowing him at all times, federal court judge rules ... But the Federal Court judge ruled instead that terrorism suspects can change over time and that lengthy incarcerations do minimize the threat they pose. (Emphasis mine)

This exemplifies the dull thinking and resultant sloppy language now rampant in our courts, government and media. No amount of incarceration will minimize any form of threat if the "suspect" is not guilty!

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(2) Jab 22 - Over the vaccine barrel

The medical profession, also infected with muddy thought processes, assumed patients had H1N1 but testing showed that in the majority of cases it was only a cold. So here's the simple-minded solution to that problem:

With labs overwhelmed by the number of cases being sent for testing, health officials are now asking doctors not to bother testing for H1N1 ...

Dull mindedness does not preclude a certain craftiness, however, hence:

"We're recommending people get the vaccine unless they have had laboratory-confirmed evidence of this pandemic influenza virus.”

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

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(3) Vaccine heroes

Canadians should be compensated for vaccine reactions

... we're talking about people who suffer severe reactions after having taken the advice of the government. Getting vaccinated is supposed to be for the greater good of society.

They should at least get medals, or entry into the Order of Canada, for their sacrifices for God and country.

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(4) Yars and yars of long knives ... or, what goes around comes around.

Liberal MPs plot early retirement for Ignatieff

Since Pierre Trudeau, no Liberal leader has left on his own terms. John Turner was shown the door by the Chrétienites; Jean Chrétien was forced out by Martinites; we know what happened to Dion and now we see Ignatieff is on the same path...

Rae also was critical of the performance of the leader but said he was not interested in a coup d'état. However, he added that his loyalty is solely to the Liberal party.

You have to feel sorry for politicians. Like all actor celebs, they have no friends. But, again like all actor celebs, they wouldn't have it any other way. But, clearly, the process of destroying the multi-party political system is not moving along fast enough.

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(5) Tax for the memories ...

Large majority oppose HST, poll finds
Government touts economic benefits, but British Columbians not convinced, poll finds

Anybody who imagines the HST will be anything other than a boon to business and an added expense for the consumer just hasn't been paying attention. Once they've got us paying a single tax, they'll add another - a save-the-environment tax, probably - and when we get used to that they'll roll all three into one and add another.

Look how the grocery stores are benefiting from a fake concern for the environment - they've already factored the cost of supplying bags into their prices, but now they're charging 5 cents up front for every bag used and the government collects the tax on that as well.

The fake war on terror has to be paid for somehow, I guess.

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(6) High level non-sequiturs

Back to the subject of muddy thinking: (video) A UN official acknowledges that the hacked climate emails are damaging, but assures one and all that a police investigation is underway to determine if the hacking was legal.

What a relief. If it's illegal, then it never happened.

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(7) From a reader: two climate items ...

This is a fascinating comment I found on the "Have your say" section on the BBC website.

The topic - Will the climate change e-mail claims affect Copenhagen?

Quote:

Has it ocurred to anyone that the carbon trading schemes now in play could eventually evolve into a proxy global currency and eventually a real one? The dollar will debase down to zero in a few years and we need a new global reserve currency.

A carbon currency credit backed by a negative value (pollution).

A master-stroke.

Banks, goverments, politicians and climate financiers will make hundreds of billions, maybe trillions out of it.

Climate change protests ahead of Copenhagen summit

Since when is any government leader on the side of demonstrators? Gordon Brown praised the protesters for "propelling" leaders to reach the "first world climate change agreement".

What, no police? no LRAD? no tear gas?

YYC: Seems it's a choice between being in their zoo or in their circus.

A little help from my friends ....

Mareta, located in Spain but watching the west like a sharp-eyed hawk, has been writing my blog for me the last couple of days while I get some other things done.

I'm hard-pressed to disagree with anything she says, and I gotta say, the first video cracked me up when the young female narrator called the Quink "that little witch".

First, John in Manitoba sends this link, with the comment: "If Harper is party of this, he should be shot."

It's all about the revelations of Lord Monckton regarding climate change. The man is being believed bigtime, even though sometimes I think his prime purpose may be to get royalty off the hook with regard to climate change (since he's perceived as being one of them).

Mareta writes:

Cancel Copenhagen (VIDEO)

This is a very good video - I can't honestly say that what she claims is true but I have doubts now about DDT - mainly because I was a child when it was an issue and the fact that it was made into such an issue when many other things were not and that the environmental movement seems to have a history of exaggeration, an interest in eugenics and a desire to create fear in order to control the masses.

As I recall, the thing about the seagulls was attributed to DDT but I suppose it could have just as easily been caused by pollution from any industry - in the worst case scenario, maybe DDT was used as a cover up for a catastrophe caused by someone else.

Ya gotta wonder.

An interesting critique about Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" WRT to DDT conspiracy

A page that lists various documents related to the DDT conspiracy (that I gots ta get thru....) including a copy of the 1972 EPA report saying that DDT should not be banned.

Funny, as of yet I don't know what to believe but it would not surprise me at all that DDT was banned because it actually encouraged the survival of African children.

How can African nations even consider being involved with Copenhagen is beyond me, except they are looking forward to some kind of hand-out I suppose.

I also saw a seriously propagandistic film releases - gosh - in time for Copenhagen! It actually refers to carbon as "poison" in that it kills life I suppose - not to mention the irony that we are carbon-based lifeforms (WTF?): "Home"

It is extremely manipulative. It uses a woman seemingly around her early forties to narrate the film to evoke the feeling that mother herself is talking to us. It personifies animals and it mixes fact and fiction in order to make the fiction be interpreted as fact. It tells us we only have 10 years to make changes that will save the earth from Catastrophe.It uses imagery that suggests that the only way for humanity to live in balance with the earth is to live primitively. It uses language that evokes gaia mythology and can be easily interpreted as an attempt to encourage earth worship.

It also suggest that the earth can and should be managed. I can't help but wonder - we humans already do such a lousy job at animal management - causing booms and busts in tightly controlled populations - that I can't see how anyone could even hope to manage the earth.

While I agree with much of what it says I can't agree with the bottom line - Carbon is poison.

I have no idea where they get their statistics from but I have serious doubts about their accuracy given the recent revelations in the emails from the climate change research group.

I no longer even know if the planet is warming or cooling because so much of the documented data has been massaged and the raw data has been erased.

If the earth is warming I think there is very little we can do to stop it or mitigate it. If the elite really believe, as Ted Turner said, that we will all end up in Somalia cannibalizing each other when the world becomes uninhabitable for global warming, then it makes sense that they would rig the global warming survival game (just as they have rigged the stock market and banking system to ensure their profit) by using carbon tax to ensure they have the wealth and resources when things get bad.

Other DDT conspiracy links:

This one suggests that the tobacco industry is behind the conspiracy.

This is an interesting discussion. I like this quote:

Of course not, but it always leads to the larger claim that the ban on DDT was reckless and led to millions of unnecessary deaths that can be laid at the feet of a bunch of no-nothing luddite eagle and pelican hugging hippies. Of course if we were so concerned about the plight of the poor in the tropics we would have spent the last sixty years developing more effective anti-malarial drugs rather than more and better drugs to maintain erections.

Some people in this discussion suggest that it was the reckless use of DDT that caused the problem - which sounds plausible as most industry does tend to extremes.

A Kenyan website with a post about the DDT conspiracy.

The case for DDT

Of course, this could all be yet another eugenics program disguised as aid for the developing world. Who knows anymore?

I do think though, that pesticide-soaked mosquito nets pose serious dangers to the communities they claim to be helping.

YYC: Whatever the case for or against DDT, somehow I don't think the health of little kids is the bottom line.

Mareta continues:

A last point about Copenhagen.

I am convinced that the group that is behind all this consists of the royal families, the peerage, the corporations and Bankers, politician-toadies chasing after influence and wealth, scientist-toadies who have become rich through appeasing the elite and NGO's looking for handouts for their causes.

The extent of corruption is unimaginable. The impression I have is that this is a massive group of parasites that have come together to live off the rest of the world's people and do not care what happens to them so long as they and their interests survive.

These are strange bed-fellows indeed. When I was involved in activism we chose specific projects and made goals and tried to achieve them. Biologists and ecologists did not expect to get rich and certainly would never have sided with the coporations, much less been sponsored by them. We made posters and displays, gave talks and encouraged the public with events that offered opportunity for hands-on participation - we asked them to pick up garbage, clear streams, plant trees, help build habitat for fish etc. Action was always at the local level so accountability was important.

Today activism is global, with corporate-backing and famous wealthy spokespeople. The message is delivered in slick films, sound bites and commericals. Participation means donate or buy my product that gives 10% to some cause or other. The message is conveniently vague - we're all gonna die, global warming is our fault. Solutions are formulated by the elite and made into legislation that dictates what everyone else (who is not in the "group") is allowed to do and not to do. Accountability is meaningless now as any actions occur at levels far away from the people that they will affect. The people have no voice because crowd control and oppressive policing has taken it away.

The idea of the world coming together to form global government in order to deal with global problems is nice but not when its being formed by a corrupt gang of parasites.

YYC: Good analysis of the activist situation! Durn right about the people having lost their voice when protesting in the traditional ways, marching and letter writing. But the bigwigs probably do worry about how they look (video) on YouTube - which is why they want to control (video) our online experience. Obama said he wants the Internet protected. That alone makes me worry about what's really going to happen. It's times like these that whatever Google's faults may be, the fact that they are big enough to possibly keep the Internet open and free gives me hope. Just don't get sucked into letting 23 and Me (a Google investment) grab your DNA.

Told you so ...

Denis Rancourt has an article by David Noble on his Activist Climate Guy blog entitled: Corporate Climate Coup Confirmed

Excerpt:

As popular dismay mounts over the scurrilous surreality of the market-based carbon-trading scam, the corporate campaign has been thrown into possibly fatal disarray with the inelegant demolition of the preposterous pretensions of pure, peer-reviewed, science. And as the veil is lifted from the habitat of the gaming wizards of global warming, the UK Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University, we would expect, given this historical review of the political economy of AGW, to find familiar faces, and we do. There they are, in the fine print of the history of the outfit (www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history), among the funders of the Nobel-lauded independent minds that supposedly certified our sanity in this madness: BP and Shell. You guessed it.

YYC: That link doesn't work, of course (are they hiding?), so here is the cached version. The list of funders is at the bottom of the page.

In 2007, when it wasn't yet fashionable to question human caused climate change, Denis Rancourt himself wrote a paper on the fallacy of CO2 as bogeyman, and YYC reviewed it before it was published.