Today, Wednesday, I started the day with Toronto's Number One morning, John Oakley, live on AM640. John asked me about my trip on United Airlines last Friday, when I discovered mid-flight that this very website is "blacklisted" because of "inappropriate" content. So I asked their laughably misnamed Customer Service department: Why? Hilarity ensued, as you can see here.
John and I also discussed Trudeau the Younger's 50/50 boy/girl cabinet, which was sworn in at Rideau Hall today - and whether you should have an airport named after you if you're not dead. I mean, literally dead. Not just figuratively dead, as I am to United Airlines.
Oh, and I think there was a little bit of pre-Paris climate change, too, which I suggested was just a particularly punitive form of neo-colonialism. Click below to listen:
~As for that book of mine John was kind enough to mention, it's my very latest - "A Disgrace to the Profession", the new must-read hit on the cartoon climatology that has helped bring us to the madness of the Paris summit. I like this review by Michael Thomlinson over at Amazon Canada:
A scathing indictment of Michael Mann's corruption of the scientific process for personal gain and political leverage. Steyn exposes the lie behind 'settled science' and reveals how bad data, invalid methods and cherry-picked results have spawned the multi-billion dollar Climate Change industry now operating across the planet. Readers are shown how Mann's cabel has corrupted the peer review process, co-opted the IPCC bureaucracy and responded to reasoned and valid criticism with professional and personal attacks.
All true, although Mr Thomlinson's headline gave me a chuckle:
This book should be required reading for every high-school student in the world.
Well, I'd settle for Ontario. Over to you, Premier Wynne.
Speaking of curriculum requirements, I was tickled by this letter from Ecuador reader Zeev Kidron:
Hi Mark,
My daughter is graduating high school this year. As an obligatory assignment she now has to watch (for a second time) Fat Al Gore's epic movie and write a report. As I keep on feeding her online information about the facts, she approached the teacher and asked for a changed assignment, since the movie has been debunked by scientific facts and all its predictions, notably the Hokey Stick, laid to waste.
The teacher's response was "sigh, yes I know but it's the International Baccalaureate program so you have to do it".
We're now at a stage where teachers knowingly teach false information because "it's the program". My daughter will be safe, I made sure of it. Others I am not so sure.
Don't take any chances with your high-schoolers, ladies and gentlemen! Pick up a copy of "A Disgrace to the Profession". Aside from the print edition, we're also available in Kindle and Nook.
PS Don't forget my contribution to the new Magna Carta book. Buy one for Justin: Like too many Canadians, he thinks the "Great Charter" is something his dad cooked up in the early Eighties.
~Some readers have asked whether I ever heard back from United. Yes. Two days later, they sent a Tweet claiming my site was blocked only because of "excessive bandwidth" - due to my cat video, presumably, which hadn't yet been posted. In any case, that doesn't explain why anyone attempting to access SteynOnline is automatically redirected to a United Airways page marked in the URL bar as "unitedwifi.com/global/errors/site-blacklist" with a warning about "inappropriate" content. Most people in the blacklist business aren't upfront enough to label it a "blacklist", but United does and very publicly.
They asked us to DM them, so we did, and three days later they have yet to reply.
I should add that I'm very touched by the United Airways pilots who've written to me to say how personally embarrassed they are by their company's hostility to free speech. One United captain came to a speech I gave and waited very patiently afterwards to apologize for his airline's behavior.
~Tomorrow I'll be back south of the border with Hugh Hewitt, live coast to coast at 6pm Eastern/3pm Pacific. Hope you'll dial us up.
