Climate deniers
demonized?

[Re: “Climategate,” Insect, News, Dec. 3] Your Quebecor roots are showing! I think it’s ridiculous that you make “Climategate” last week’s “Insect” with the reasoning that the e-mail quotes were taken “out of context” and that the “science remains solid.”

How can the phrase “...hide the decline...” be taken out of context? How can you say the science remains solid when it came from scientists that fixed and withheld their data?

You also say, “...some of the protocol may have been questionable...”? That’s your whitewash when the scientists lied, deceived and suppressed information? “Questionable” is quite an understatement when the programmers are quoted as saying (in regards to the CRU’s database), “Aarrggghhh! There truly is no end in sight. . . . We can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage.”

Your rant obviously comes down from on high, or you are so brainwashed and can’t think for yourselves that you parrot the talking points that the mainstream media have received. You can read any of the few mainstream articles whitewashing the subject and they’re all almost verbatim—demonizing and insulting AGW skeptics and intimating that the e-mails are fake. Burying your heads in the sand won’t make the scandal go away. The e-mails are admittedly real, the fraud is clear and your credibility has taken another hit. At least the MSM, including alarmist golden-boy George Monbiot, admit that the e-mails are real and are damaging.

>>R. HARRIS

Canada out of
Afghanistan!

[Re: “Canadian whistle-blowing diplomat Richard Colvin,” Angel, News, Nov. 26] Kudos to Richard Colvin on his courage and frankness!

But can PM Harper himself please admit that the presence of 2,500-plus troops in Afghanistan itself is without United Nations’ clear mandate.

We are perhaps there to reinforce Uncle Sam’s hegemony and imperialist grab! Are we playing the American game of installing a pro-American regime, by hook or by crook? Apparently, a sham election is okay so long as the woman-hating warlords are ruling the roost and gun-running and poppy-growing is order of the day!

Our brave soldiers have better things to do at home than to protect the corrupt bureaucrats in Afghanistan!

Let our soldiers come home!

>>J.S H. GOHAR

Vive le Québec Frankel!

[Re: “Parizeau neither senile nor rambling!” Letters, Nov. 26] What an unexpected honour, to have my “Zionist tirades” singled out as a reason to avoid reading Mirror in one of two separatist tirades.

The writer, one Pierre-E. Paradis, did not mention that I almost always write in response to anti-Israel “tirades,” nor did he condemn them, so I assume that while he wants a state for Québécois, he does not want one, at least a safe one, for Jews.

It is strange to be defending the Mirror, but while their article on Jacques Parizeau was belittling, they certainly never questioned his right to present his views.

As a fluently bilingual, ardent Quebecer and federalist who is only too glad to use French at any opportunity when nobody attempts to force me to do so, I would hate for Parizeau to be quiet. Every time he makes a contribution, he helps our cause. That is because he is one of the few honest separatists. He wants a Quebec state for its own virtue and damn the costs. Of course such a state would be viable, but would it help or hurt? Something to ponder while passing through customs on the way to or from Toronto.

He also doesn’t worry about the mythology of separatism, that the French language is disappearing, or that the British were the start of all evil here, as examples of “merde de toro.”

One of the few times Parizeau, like Levesque before him, was obviously dishonest was in the wording of the referendum questions. Neither had the cojones to ask “Are you in favour of a sovereign Quebec state, completely independent from the rest of Canada?“ because they knew the answer in advance.

Hopefully, we will have moved on, never be bothered with that again, and can continue to build a better Quebec together.

Should, God forbid, that be wrong, just as I have always favoured the partition of Palestine into primarily Jewish and Arab states, so would I favour the partition of Quebec, where practical according to the preference of the affected regions. What’s sauce for the goose.

Entre toi et moi, M. Paradis, le Québec a beaucoup changé depuis 1960, et ça, en général, d’une façon avantageuse. Ni la vielle femme chez Eaton ni Eaton elle-même sont toujours de cette terre!

Vive le Québec au Canada!

>>KEN FRANKEL
(QUENNE PHRANQUELLE?)

WE WELCOME LETTERS TO THE EDITOR!

Send your comments, compliments or criticisms to:

Letters to the Editor,

c/o Montreal Mirror,

465 McGill, 3rd Floor

Montreal, Quebec

H2Y 4B4

You may also fax us at (514) 393-3173, or reach us by e-mail at letters@mtl-mirror.com:

Letters to the Editor

All letters should include your name, address and daytime phone number.

If you wish to reach someone in particular, here's a list of people involved with the production of the newspaper and this site.