Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns.
I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015).
I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!"
You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).
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Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Because to the Times, race is the only thing that matters From Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column: "It's not every day that the New York Times publishes an article about the Washington Post, and when they do, you take notice. Or at least I do. A week and a half ago, the Times published a piece on the Post's hiring of a managing editor. (Payment now required, to see the piece in toto.) What's so newsworthy about that? you ask. Well, the man is white. And a man! So? you ask. What do you mean, 'So?'? Haven't you been living in America? According to this report, another finalist for this job was black, and another was a white woman. The hiring of the white man — he has a name, actually, and personhood: Philip Bennett — caused some upset at the paper. But the man who did the hiring, Leonard Downie Jr., 'said he "thought for a long time" about diversity before deciding Mr. Bennett was best for the job'." There are only two sports in North America Washington Post sports columnist Thomas Boswell has this line in his piece today on the Montreal Expos moving to Washington and becoming the Nationals and what it means to the Washington Redskins: "The Redskins have had Washington to themselves for 33 years." What about the Capitals and Bullets/Wizards? Great news from the MLBB front This New York Post story indicates that the New York Yankees have not made Pedro Martinez an offer on par with those made by the Boston Red Sox or New York Mets because trading for left-handed pitcher Randy Johnson and signing centerfielder Carlos Beltran are the priorities. Thank God. Martinez is a spoiled, greasy, SOB whose best days are behind him. And his flattening of Don Zimmer is unforgiveable. I would much rather lose without Pedro than win with him. But if Johnson and Beltran are on the team, that might not be a choice -- winning without him is better. I only hope Pedro stays with the BoSox so we can have the pleasure of beating him come October. Desperately seeking new advertisers Yum! Brand, parent company of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, A&W and Long John Silver’s, is pulling its support for ABC's Desperate Housewives after its obscene publicity stunt last week. Jostling for position in 2008 The Hill reports that Senator John Kerry's attempts to influence the DNC Chairmanship is a sign that he may have plans to run for the party's presidential nod in 2008. More likely, he is just trying to influence the direction of his party. The candidate he was supporting, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack dropped out on the weekend, perhaps -- and The Hill does not report this -- because he has presidential ambitions of his own. Howard Dean is also running for the post but has not found a lot of Congressional support. They want a promise from him that he won't run again in 2008, a promise he refuses to make. Incredible conservative leadership in Congress The Hill reports on the brave actions of Rep. Ernest Istook who did the right thing and in the process cheesed off a lot of his Republican lawmakers: "Deep in the transportation section of this year’s omnibus spending bill, Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.) dispensed a little appropriator’s justice, punishing 21 Republicans who wrote him a letter in support of $1.8 billion for Amtrak. Istook, chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation, Treasury and Independent Agencies, drastically reduced, or entirely excised, the transportation earmarks that those lawmakers were expecting to receive, making good on a little-noticed threat he issued in a letter last February." The paper reported that Rep. John McHugh (R, NY) "came close to physical blows with Istook" when he found out that his projects were cut. Istook is a nice reminder that there is a reason why there are two parties in Washington. McHugh and his pork-loving pals Londistan calling The Guardian has aspecial report on Young, Muslim and British. Lots of good reading. For instance, the Guardian/ICM poll found that British Muslims want more Islamic law for civil cases and for workplaces and school to accommodate their prayer schedule. It also found that Muslims largely support the Liberal Democrats over Labour with the Conservatives far behind. All very interesting, even if it not terribly surprising. In a guest column, Jalaluddin Patel, leader of the UK branch of Hizb ut Tahrir, the Islamic Liberation party, says that Muslims should oppose government policies meant to "integrate" them into society, saying "The whole discussion of integration is a front for coercive assimilation, and no more than an assertion of western values as being superior." Well, yes. And to be honest about it, most British Muslims are still immigrants (54%)who chose Britain as their new home. It is they, the Muslims who should adapt to their new society, not society to them. But, says Patel, Muslims have so much to teach us westerners: "I think Muslims should be able to participate fully in society without compromising their Islamic value system. But we need to show society what these values are. In wider society we see the breaking down of the family, crime on the rise - the Muslim community can play a central role in tackling these problems." Yes, and that must be why 41% support the socially liberal, soft on crime Liberal Democrats. The paper's editorial says nothing but one would expect the Guardian to say: the need to respect diversity, concern for Muslims living in poverty and time for more discussion of what the role of Muslims in British society might be. But the most thought-provoking part of the report was a quote from a woman in the large focus group the paper conducted of more than 100 young Muslims. The un-named participant said "You can never be 100% British." And that is the question both Muslims and Britons will have to answer: what is the appropriate mix of British and Islam for Islamic Brits? The Guardian is hardly the paper to explore that question with the intellectual forthrightness required. Greatest commentary on greatest Canadian Over at The Shotgun Damian Penny says of the choice of Tommy Douglas as Greatest Canadian: "Tommy Douglas has won that "Greatest Canadian" poll, proving that maintaining a feeling of smug superiority over those uncouth Yanks is our one and only national characteristic." The continuing scandal that is the UN The AP reports that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "disappointed" that his son received payments ($30,000 a year) from a Swiss company that helped facilitate the oil-for-food deal/scandal. According to the AP, Annan "had been working on the understanding that payments to his son, Kojo Annan, from Cotecna Inspection S.A. stopped in 1998," with Annan saying "I had not expected that the relationship continued." Isn't that typical of the UN -- Annan is merely disappointed, not outraged and that he worked on the assumption that his son was no longer getting paid, instead of ensuring that Kojo wasn't. Government's rules get in the way of functional New York City schools The New York Post and the New York Sun both have this story. A study by Common Good found that rules from more than 60 sources govern NYC schools; according to the Sun, "The regulations include 720 pages of rules issued by the state's education commissioner, as well as the 204-page New York City teachers contract, the 690-page No Child Left Behind Act, and mountains of other local, state, and federal regulations." The Post lists just a few of the regulations: "* Suspending a disruptive student involves 66 steps and can take up to 105 days. * Firing a teacher takes 83 steps and can take over a year to complete. * Putting a note in a teacher's file requires following 32 steps. * Replacing a heating system involves 99 steps and can take months. * Hosting an athletic event requires considering the size of ear flaps on helmets." The city Department of Education spokeswoman Michele Mc-Manus welcomes the study. She said, "Years of experience have demonstrated that we will not be able to regulate ourselves into success through micro-compliance or through micromanagement by either the bureaucracy or unduly proscriptive labor agreements." It appears that the road to educational hell is paved by government -- of all levels. Monday, November 29, 2004
Hannukkah song controversy The Washington Times reports that Binyamin Jolkovsky, the dude who runs jewishworldreview.com, doesn't like Adam Sandler's "The Hanukkah Song." I understand some of his concerns; what I don't understand is the defense of "The Hannukkah Song" made by Yosef Abramowitz, chief executive officer of Newton, Mass.-based Jewish Family and Life: "Christmas music is so everywhere during this season that Sandler had to be over the top as a song of rebellion ... Sandler's song is the default song. People should be happy it's made it into the mainstream. You're not going to have regular Hanukkah music make it onto the rock music stations." I didn't know that getting Hannukkah music onto the rock music was a priority for the faithful Jewish community; but then I would have never expected that having Adam Sandler's silly song make it was a suitable compromise. Render unto Ceasar Mark Krikorian notes in The Corner a subtle, nice and useful distinction between immigrant policy and immigration policy before turning to the problem of bishops playing partisan politics: "Yet another area where Catholic bishops are out of step with their flock. Instead of sticking to immigrant policy – i.e., insisting, rightly, that we always treat foreigners as fellow children of God – the bishops are dabbling in immigration policy, arguing that illegal alien amnesties and open immigration are religious imperatives. The upshot of their critique is a rejection of the authority of the State in matters of immigration. It would appear that the bishops really are, as Fr. Neuhaus once suggested, 'the religious lobby of the Democratic Party'." US may scale back funding for UN The New York Post reports that legislation before the House of Representatives that would reduce American funding for the UN by 10% has 75 co-sponsors. A companion bill, the paper also reports, has been introduced in the Senate. Furthermore, "one congressional investigator said that a move to reduce or cut off U.S. funding could quickly gain momentum — and the Bush administration would be unwilling or unable to stop it — if culpable U.N. officials aren't prosecuted or fired and major reforms are not enacted." We can only hope that culpable UN officials aren't prosecuted and major reforms are not enacted. Byfield (Ted) on an elected Senate Calgary Sun columnist Ted Byfield, father of one of the four elected-but-never-to-be-appointed senators from Alberta, describes at once the benefit of an elected Senate and the reason there never will be one: "An elected Senate, having a mandate from the people, would exercise the Senate's very broad powers, where the appointed Senate, sensing its fundamental illegitimacy, dares not. No legislation, passed by the Commons, would be assured of automatic passage in a real Senate. There, the terms of every bill would have to be negotiated. Defeat of the bill would not defeat the government (as in the Commons) but neither would the bill become law. In other words, the senator would be a far more powerful figure than the MP, and a province's senators, much more than its provincial government, would become its effective voice at Ottawa. The provincial governments can only whine -- the senators could act." Tuns on McQuaig's latest My review of It's the Crude, Dude by Linda McQuaig, was in yesterday's Halifax Herald. Persuasive arguments but wrong assumptions McQuaig fails to prove war waged for oil It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil, and the Fight for the Planet by Linda McQuaig (Doubleday Canada, $35.95, 346 pages) By Paul Tuns The great thing about being on the political left is that all of the pet causes nicely come together in their opposition to the war to liberate Iraq: the anti-globalism and anti-capitalism campaigns, opposition to America in general and President George W. Bush's presidency especially, the utopian peacenik movement, the anti-SUV crowd. For the left, everything is intimately and intricately connected. Linda McQuaig, a Toronto Star columnist, has a new book, It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil, and the Fight for the Planet, in which she makes the links that connects the war to North Americans' alleged addiction to oil. McQuaig connects the dots to make a persuasive case that George Bush fought a war in Iraq under the false pretense of fighting a war on terror to help Big Oil get its hands on the crude under the Middle East. Persuasive but wrong. McQuaig is able to draw the picture she does because she is selective on which dots to connect and sometimes even draws in a few of her own to flesh it out a bit. The end result is a book that bears little impression to reality but looks a lot like the world that those on the left, such as McQuaig, think exist. There are two great untruths McQuaig depends upon in her narrative, both of which are examples of her ignoring the existing dots and drawing new ones to complete her picture. The first is that there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to point to a link between the former Iraqi dictator and the loose network of Islamic terrorists as Stephen Hayes noted his book The Connection: How al-Qaida's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. Whether Saddam was connected directly to the 9/11 attacks is another issue but to state flatly that there is no Saddam-al-Qaida link is wrong. Furthermore, despite the existence of some circumstantial evidence linking Saddam to the World Trade Centre and Pentagon attacks, McQuaig and her ilk are waiting for the proverbial and probably non-existent smoking gun. So she ignores the Saddam-al-Qaida dot and replaces it with the Halliburton dot. Halliburton is the "oil services provider" of which Dick Cheney was CEO. That this company profited from the rebuilding of Iraq is proof that the war was about oil, not weapons of mass destruction or humanitarian concerns. Never mind that other companies, including many non-American companies, have taken part in the rebuilding effort and profited from it. Never mind that there were indeed humanitarian concerns about Saddam's tyranny and intelligence that indicated some sort of WMD program. Why else would Saddam not co-operate with UN weapons inspectors? McQuaig never explores this question. The second untruth is about oil. McQuaig draws a picture in which the world is about to imminently run out of oil. She says that a necessary step toward peace in the Middle East is for North Americans to radically alter their lifestyle to end their dependency on the black gold underneath much of the ground in that troubled hot spot. Things will only get worse because the supply of oil is finite and reserves are pretty close to empty. Aside from the erroneous assumptions about peace, the most serious flaw in this argument is that while oil is finite, the known reserves of oil are actually larger today than it was three decades ago. Peter Odell has rebutted the oil-reserve doomsayers since the 1970s and in his latest book, Why Carbon Fuels Will Dominate the 21st Century's Global Energy Economy, he says that the pessimists ignore both technology and economics in making their dire predictions. Over time, oil technology improves, just as it has for the past century, which allows us to discover more oil, extract it better and use it more efficiently. Furthermore, if oil was as scarce as the McQuaigs of this world claim, oil companies would be frantically finding new energy sources instead of pressuring governments to invade foreign countries in an attempt to control foreign oil. The blood for oil argument is a powerful one, especially in McQuaig's capable journalistic hands. But it is still wrong. It is uncharitable to dismiss every other argument for overthrowing Saddam Hussein simply because there is a vast reservoir of oil under the land he once ruled. Such single-mindedness is the result of ignoring so much contrary evidence as to make the book interesting only as an example of an anti-Bush polemic. Saturday, November 27, 2004
Signs of the Times New York Times headline: "Gay Students Force New Look at Homecoming Traditions." For fear of Canada's hate crime laws, I offer no comment. A simple idea for healthcare reform Kate comments on a post of mine on healthcare earlier this week at The Shotgun: "I can wrap up the difference between the Canadian health system and that in the US in a single, simple observation. In the US system, they have a vested interest in keeping you alive - dead patients don't produce profit. In Canada, the bottom line is better served if you die. It is a canard to say our system is 'not for profit'. EVERYONE profits. The doctor, nurses, attendants, beaurocrats - all are guaranteed a 'profit'. And that's the fundamental problem - no consequences for inferior job performance. If governments want to smooth out waiting lists, get bovine nurses off their fat asses and back into the business of patient care - they should institute a check-off system - to hold back a portion of top tier worker's wages on every case, until the patient or patient's family signs off that they are satisfied with the treatment they recieved." Friday, November 26, 2004
Three things 1. Blogging will be sporadic over the next 3-4 days. 2. You can send comments to paul_tuns[AT]yahoo.com 3. You can order my book Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal through Freedom Press (Canada) Inc. or Barnes and Noble or Amazon.ca. To whom is the American Left talking to? London Free Press columnist Herman Goodden on the post-election silliness of the Left in America: "But this time, even with Bush Junior being the first president in 16 years (since Bush Senior, in fact) to win more than 50 per cent of the popular vote while also racking up larger majorities in both the House and the Senate, the left refuses to grow up and face facts. The most surreal manifestation of their delusion can be found at the website, www.sorryeverybody.com, where thousands of ticked off, shame-faced Americans are posting photos of themselves and their pets holding hand-written cards expressing their remorse for living in a country where the wrong candidate won. Just who, one wonders, are they trying to appease? Are they hoping the beheaders of innocent hostages and aid workers, or the murderers of Dutch filmmakers and American journalists, will behold these trite expressions of generic regret and put down their scimitars and guns? Is George W. Bush's commitment to take out terrorists and secure a foothold for democratic self-determination in an oppressed and increasingly dangerous corner of the globe really the root problem here?" My guess is that the Left is talking to itself. They are not trying to appease the murderers but their own, twisted consciences. But perhaps I am being too charitable; I just couldn't imagine Lefties being so out of touch that they would believe anyone in the world cares that they are sorry they live in such a horrible nation as the one that re-elected President George W. Bush. The meaning of the Alberta Senate election Calgary Sun columnist and senator-in-waiting Link Byfield writes about the significance of the Senate elections in Alberta earlier this week, where Byfield ran as an indepedent and finished fourth out of ten candidates: "The question has been asked, what did the election achieve? I think it has been answered by two million marks on Alberta ballots. The mere fact that most voters chose to cast Senate ballots proves we believe Parliament's upper house should be elected, not appointed by Paul Martin. No reform could be more reasonable, nor do as much to change the way the federal government operates." Keeping the corruption all in the family The invaluable Claudia Rosett writes in the New York Sun about the involvement of Kojo Annan, son of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in the oil-for-food scandal: "One of the next big chapters in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal will involve the family of the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whose son turns out to have been receiving payments as recently as early this year from a key contractor in the oil-for-food program. The secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, was previously reported to have worked for a Swiss-based company called Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving in Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the oil-for-food program. But investigators are now looking into new information suggesting that the younger Annan received far more money over a much longer period, even after his compensation from Cotecna had reportedly ended. The importance of this story involves not only undisclosed conflicts of interest, but the question of the role of the secretary-general himself, at a time when talk is starting to be heard around the U.N. that it is time for him to resign, and the staff labor union is in open rebellion against 'senior management'." The decline of a once fine columnist Ditto everything Matt Vadum says on Paul Craig Roberts, a once brilliant critic of Leviathan but now a tedious crank. Thursday, November 25, 2004
Conservatism is a foreign country Jonah Goldberg on William Safire and the New York Times need for new, real conservative but also, more importantly, for the Times (and the Left in general) to understand what conservatism is and is not, in yesterday's G-File: "More to the point, institutions like the New York Times need to open themselves up to the idea that conservatism is more than a mere 'phenomenon' or 'trend.' It is America. Or at least it is as much a part of America — and almost certainly more — than homosexuality, African-American fashion, liberal angst, and various Jewish identity crises." The Times and other liberal elite will never understand that conservatism is an idea as valid of consideration as liberalism is; they treat it as an oddity because, to them, it is a strange, foreign concept which they will never understand, let alone come to terms with. Michael Moore should look in the mirror Graham Stewart on Michael Moore in The Spectator: "One can forgive the sort of puff his publishers and publicists put out on his behalf, but a little modesty from the great man himself would have been becoming. He loathes the smirking self-certainty of President Bush. He should look in the mirror." And why wouldn't he, after all he is in love with himself. Michael Moore movies are less about Bush or guns or General Motors than it is about Michael Moore and his take on Bush, guns and General Motors. As Stewart says about Moore's work, "It is seemingly impossible to discuss the material without being diverted by the conceited egomaniac behind it all." What I'm thankful for today Red State voters. Thank you for supporting the presidential candidate that will make not only America but the world safer, in time. A little good news from Ukraine The Washington Post reported tonight: "Ukraine's Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the inauguration of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the declared winner of Sunday's presidential election, agreeing to hear arguments that the vote was tainted by fraud and shifting some momentum to supports of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko." WaPo on the Ukraine The Washington Post editorial today: "Some have described the crisis in Ukraine as a contest for influence between Russia and the West, with the West backing opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko in the same measure that Russian President Vladimir Putin has supported the official candidate. That is a gross distortion. For the Ukrainians who have spent four freezing nights in the streets of Kiev, the fight is not about geopolitical orientation -- most favor close relations with Moscow -- but about whether theirs will be a free country, with an independent press and courts and leaders who are chosen by genuine democratic vote. Mr. Putin, who has channeled hundreds of millions of dollars into the prime minister's campaign, is backing the imposition of an authoritarian system along the lines of the one he is creating in Russia -- with a propagandistic regime, controlled media, official persecution of dissent, business executives who take orders from the state, and elections that are neither free nor fair." It is not a contest for influence between Russia and West, but whether in the Ukraine will be become a western nation or remain a Soviet one. Bloggers criticize MSM at their own peril? Fellow Shotgunner Kevin Steel links to and comments on Antonia Zerbisias' inane Toronto Star column (but I repeat myself) on why bloggers shouldn't take aim at the mainstream media. Zerb says: "But, just like trigger happy celebrants in the Middle East, who have yet to figure out that what goes up must come down, they can't see that, by firing up at us, they will also kill themselves." Steel replies: "Oh no. It's raining bullets. We're killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Pretty soon there won't be any news at all." Normally I care little for comments, but some are worth noting. Voon's reply to Zerb: "Why does she think that criticizing her involves aiming up? It's probably sideways, maybe it's down." And David Crawford makes an excellent point, too: "Could you imagine the response by Zerbisias if a president or prime minister put forward that same request that they no longer be questioned or crticized? Because, questioning or critizing a president or prime minister may undermine the credibility of the government." Me on TV You can see me on CBC News: Sunday. I'm talking about President George W. Bush's visit to Canada. I did 30 minute interview this afternoon for what will likely be a 30 second spot. It will be one both Newsworld and CBC, check the website for times. I'll have some comments after it airs. Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Compromise always means conservatives giving in This New York Times editorial on the politics of a Central American Free Trade Agreement concludes: "We hope President Bush and the Republican leadership can come up with compromises in other areas that might woo Mr. Rangel and the Democrats. The Central American accord is a good idea that will help job growth in a needy region." The paper admits that free trade would be good for the region but nonetheless still calls for the majority party to surrender some principle to get the Democrats on-side. When was the last time you ever saw an editorial calling for Democrats to compromise? A rare case of judicial sanity Washington Post reports that a federal judge, "turned down a request by presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr. to leave a psychiatric hospital for a series of unsupervised visits at his parents' home in Williamsburg." 'The Hooter girl is our Ronald McDonald': lawyer Overlawyered notes that Hooters is suing a Kissimmee, Florida "breastaurant," the WingHouse, for using curvy, under-dressed waitresses to attract customers, claiming they stole Hooters' idea. The Florida Sun-Sentinel has all the legal reasoning behind Hooters' claim that somehow they were wronged because they had the original idea "of marketing bosoms and buttocks to sell chicken wings and beer to young men." One question: if Hooters is successful, will every other restaurant in the United States have to hire flat-chested ugly chicks? The proverbial deafening silence coming out of Hollywood Bridget Johnson writes in the Wall Street Journal about what happened earlier this month in the Netherlands: "Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh's short film 'Submission,' about the treatment of women in Islam, written by female Dutch parliamentarian and former Muslim Aayan Hirsi Ali, had aired in August on Dutch TV. Van Gogh was riding his bike near his home when a Muslim terrorist shot him, slashed his throat, and pinned to his body a note threatening Ms. Ali. This appears to be an organized effort, not the act of a lone nut; Dutch authorities are holding 13 suspects in the case." And what have Hollywood types said? Incredibly, nothing. Johnson says, "One would think that in the name of artistic freedom, the creative community would take a stand against filmmakers being sent into hiding à la Salman Rushdie, or left bleeding in the street. Yet we've heard nary a peep from Hollywood about the van Gogh slaying." But what is the killing of a real documentary producer at the hands of Islamist fanatics when President George W. Bush wants to silence the likes of Michael Moore? Never mind that there is no evidence of Bush's clamping down on people with opposing views while the evidence of the threat by Islamic fanatics literally gets buried. Double standards and abortion The Detroit News reports: "A teenage couple in Macomb County could face criminal charges for allegedly ending a pregnancy by beating on the girl's stomach. They also have rekindled the abortion debate in the state. While abortion is legal in Michigan, the actions investigators said the two 16-year-olds took -- hitting the girl with a miniature baseball bat to cause a miscarriage -- is not, legal analysts said." Why not? It seems discriminatory to allow a doctor to commit an abortion but not the parents. Tuesday, November 23, 2004
"Most Annoying Liberal Pundit tourney" CrushKerry.com (which has announced it will soon become anklebitingpundits.com) is running a NCAA-like tournament to determine the "Most Annoying Liberal Pundit." It looks like it will be a lot of fun. I'm not sure Michael Moore is a pundit, but he is probably an early favourite. He should win the McGovern regional bracket easily. This regional bracket has the best friend round match-up: Robert Scheer vs. Al Hunt. I think that there is strong competition in the Dukakis regional bracket with Al Franken and Chris Matthews. (Is there any more annoying pundit that Matthews.) It'll be a great competition in the Gore regional bracket: Paul Krugman, Aaron Brown, Keith Olbermann, Eleanor Clift and Billy Moyers. In the Kerry regional bracket, Maureen Dowd is the hands-down favourite over the likes of Jon Stewart and Margaret Carlson (who is ranked just 10th in the region!). Considering it is the Most Annoying Liberal Pundit, Chris Matthews should win. If it was the Most Dishonest Liberal Pundit, Michael Moore and Paul Krugman should be co-winners. If it was the Most Detestable Liberal Pundit Dowd would win in a landslide. Should be fun to watch. Conservative parties were put on this earth to cut our taxes Whatever else any conservative party might do, it must stand for tax cuts. This is the bare minimum conservatives must do. Janet Daley tries to remind the British Tories of this as she writes in the Daily Telegraph that the only way the British Tories will be able to stop the Blairite Labour party from stealing their ideas (Labour Party must be British for Chretienite Liberal Party) is to offer serious tax cuts: "There is only one answer to plagiarism: go where your unscrupulous imitators cannot follow. And most Tories (including some frustrated, restive ones at the top of the party) know where that is. Tax cuts, gentlemen, tax cuts. And that doesn't mean vague good intentions, or pious hopes, or maybe-possibly-can't-promise-we'll-see-if-we-can-afford-it-at-the-time." To hell about affording tax cuts. No politician ever asks if taxpayers can afford another round of increased taxes. Daley calls for an aggressive tax-cut agenda and wonders why Conservative leader Michael Howard and Tory shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin, "desperate as they are to get on to ground which Labour can't occupy, [won't] go unequivocally for tax cuts?" before giving the reasons the disappointing Howard and cowardly Letwin provide, along with her rebuttals: "There is no point in promising lower taxes: voters no longer believe politicians' promises, so making them is counter-productive. It may be true that people tell the pollsters that they no longer believe a word that any politician says, but Labour has been making unfulfilled pledges for eight years and it hasn't doesn't it that much harm electorally: it has had two landslide victories and seems to be heading for another. Its phoney promises still manage to grab headlines, while the Tories' refusal to make solid commitments has simply rendered them invisible. (People still complain that they 'don't know what the Tories stand for'.) The failure to make any promises makes the Conservatives appear, not honest and responsible as they hope, but ineffectual and indecisive. We can't promise tax cuts yet because we don't know whether they will be affordable. This argument is based on the rather quaint idea that governments must never, ever go into deficit: a principle which Labour used to ridicule when it was Thatcherite policy (the economics of a petit bourgeois housewife, they called it) but which has now been embraced by Gordon 'Prudence' Brown. Arthur Laffer, the economist who revolutionised modern thinking on tax, showed that, by reducing tax rates, you expand the economy so much that revenue is increased, and on the basis of that growth it does no harm to run a bit of deficit. This is very much the attitude of today's households: if your earnings are secure and you can reasonably expect them to rise, it is acceptable to carry some debt (such as a large mortgage). Of course, you cannot bankrupt the country, but a certain amount of deficit - when it is coupled with low tax and a fast-growing economy - is not the abomination of desolation. As soon as we propose lower taxes, Labour will start shrieking about cutting public services. There is scarcely a voter alive (so the polls tell us) who still believes that higher taxes mean better public services. The electorate is so ready to hear forceful robust arguments about how services might be improved by less government interference (and expenditure) that it is fairly seething with impatience. This is an open door at which the Conservatives seem unwilling to push: there is a credible, simple case to be made (which can be supported by evidence from abroad) that governments run services badly and expensively. Modern, accountable public services are much more likely to be delivered to people who have a power of purchase over the provider, and who are left with enough disposable income to exercise real choices. Labour is on to this shift in public opinion and is busily recasting its rhetoric to suit. Up against the most unscrupulous opponents in history, the Tories have decided to be super-scrupulous: no promises that we can't write in blood, no policy that can't be backed up with volumes of research." I think that the Tories might want to dump the uninspiring Michael Howard and consider this Thatcherite scribe to lead the party into the next election. My kind of Democrat The New York Sun reports that New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn (D) had this to say about why he is joining the chorus of opposition to the expansion and renovation of UN headquarters in east Manhattan: "I intend ... to get up on the floor and to speak out as strongly as I possibly can against this cesspool called the United Nations ... I intend to speak on the subject and to do everything humanly possible to stir things up and get people excited. I don't want to do anything to help the United Nations. "I do believe in international cooperation. I do believe in a perfect world where nations would work together. ...But that's not what the United Nations is all about. ...On principle, I want to do everything to make their life miserable." Hikind is the majority leader in the New York State Assembly so his views carry some weight and could be decisive. The UN needs New York state and city approval because their plans incorporate property that is not under the international organization's control. Rather retiring from evening news This is hardly news; Dan Rather has been long rumoured to be retiring in early 2005, which was one of the reasons he survived the 60 Minutes fake memos fiasco earlier this year. Okay, Rather's retirement isn't quite news yet, either -- it's just a rumour. So, in fact, ABC News is reporting an old rumour. Great journalism, guys. But it is worth checking out the story just to see Rather pull a pencil out of his ear. I swear, I saw it with my own eyes. How to make a French flag My son passed this one onto me. Everyone will have all the necessary materials at home. Monday, November 22, 2004
Flat tax in Britain? Probably not any time soon but the Adam Smith Institute makes a strong case for it. Flat tax in Britain? Probably not any time soon but the Adam Smith Institute makes a strong case for it. Conservatives win! In the only place we can consistently see this headline: Alberta. Premier Ralph Klein cruises to a fourth, albeit reduced majority. U.S. presidents and Saudi princes For the past three years, Democrats have complained that President George W. Bush had an improperly close relationship with Saudi Arabia. The New York Sun reports: "President Clinton's new $165 million library here was funded in part by gifts of $1 million or more each from the Saudi royal family and three Saudi businessmen. The governments of Dubai, Kuwait, and Qatar and the deputy prime minister of Lebanon all also appear to have donated $1 million or more for the archive and museum that opened last week." Indeed, the Saudis are significant contributors to all presidential libraries so why single out Bush? Iran and nuclear weapons Anton La Guardia, writing in the Daily Telegraph, examines what should be done with the increasingly nuclear Iran. He concludes: "... the day may come when military action, unpleasant as it may now appear, will seem less unpalatable than the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran." He says that for the time, with American forces stretched to the limit, the U.S. will still have to play bad cop with Europeans try to negotiate some kind of workable deal. The good news in Iraq As he does every other week, Arthur Chrenkoff has the other half of the story from Iraq -- the good news. It seems a longer than usual post but the first section on the January elections and the first part of the second section, which is on debt relief, are must reads for anyone concerned about the liberated nation. Further down is a report on a new television state which "aims at providing accurate, objective, timely and comprehensive news and information to help Iraqis learn how to use their new-found freedom as their country moves towards democracy." Londistan calling Islam Awareness Week kicks off in the United Kingdom today but my guess is that they have a different idea about what this should mean than I do. The Independent reports that an Open Society Institute study has found that since 9/11 British Muslims have experienced more "Islamaphobia." Kinda like how on 9/11 New York and Washington experienced more Islamofascism. Anyway, the OSI study says that "To be a British Muslim is defined solely in terms of negativity, deprivation, disadvantage and alienation" and suggests (according to The Independent) "offering Arabic as a modern language option in schools, and including Muslim civilisation in history lessons." Oh, yes, there is alienation and the solution the deep thinkers at the Open Society Institute come up with is to offer a class where the Muslims can separate themselves from the others and teaching what would end up being politically correct but historically incorrect lessons about so-called Muslim civilization. I wonder: Will there be anything about the Mulsim contributions to New York and Beslan? Sunday, November 21, 2004
It's purely an ego thing It's neat to see one's own name on the website of a big American bookseller like Barnes and Noble where you can buy my Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal. It is humbling, though to see that I've dropped nearly 60,000 spots in the past week. It was also funny to see that people who bought Jean Chretien also bought Hillary Rodham Clinton's Living History and Madeleine K. Albright's Madam Secretary. With the exchange rate, it's really quite reasonable to buy the book from Barnes and Noble. Man of the Year On William Bennett's radio show Morning in America on Friday people called in with their suggestions for Man of the Year. One person suggested "the Red States." Absolutely. Could you imagine where the United States would be headed without them? Not tonight honey, I'm fat A study from Duke University's Diet and Fitness Center finds that obesity is an obstacle to enjoying sex. HealthDay reported: "Half of those seeking treatment for obesity said they sometimes, usually or always felt no desire for sex, compared to just 2 percent of those who were not obese. About four out of every 10 treatment-seekers reported physical problems with sex; 41 percent said they avoided sex. In contrast, just 2.5 percent of the non-obese people said they stayed away from sexual activity." Or, just possibly, obese people are more honest. Or married. Democratic fantasies The New York Post's John Podhoretz has a column on the idea that only GOP arrogance over the next four years will cost the party its predominance in 2008. Maybe. But Podhoretz's description of the perfect Democratic presidential candidate is exactly right as is his recognition that the perfect Democratic candidate doesn't exist: "... a Blue State liberal in Red State clothing who sounds like Barney Fife, prays like Billy Graham, sweet-talks like Bill Clinton and lives like George W. Bush. The hope is that this heroic avatar would be able to 'communicate' the Democratic message more clearly to the American heartland — just as long as he and his consultants can figure out just what that message is aside from gay marriage, abortion rights and affirmative action." Satirizing the Abortion Party From Scrappleface: "Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, has proposed an amendment to a $388 billion must-pass spending bill which would require all employees of the federal government to receive training in how to administer an abortion. ... 'If the right-wing has its way, the federal government will become a threat to women everywhere,' said Ms. Boxer. 'By equipping every federal worker to provide abortions, my amendment puts a big smiley face on every government building, vehicle and name badge. It says to women, "The government loves you. You're safe with us"'." Hayward vs. the Chicken Littles Steven F. Hayward critiques the Old Time Religion of the environmentalists in a review of three books by the prophets of doom: Paul and Anne Ehrlichs' One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future; James Gustave Speth’s Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment and Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows’s Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update. It is excellent although any environuts that might read Sobering Thoughts be warned: your silly, outdated doomsaying is mocked by the relentless reporting of the facts. One fact is the embarrassing record of predictions: "Limits to Growth cites without irony the secretary-general of the United Nations: 'Members of the United Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human environment, to defuse the population explosion, and to supply the required momentum to development efforts.' The UN secretary-general who said that was U Thant in 1971." Multiculturalism against democracy Anthony Browne has an excellent piece in The Spectator examining the compatibility of multiculturalism (which at times seems to be employed as a euphemism for tolerating Islam) and democracy, looking at recent events in Belgium and the Netherlands. His conclusion should give the Left pause: "Just as communism could only be upheld by totalitarianism, so multiculturalism is being upheld by curbs on free speech and democracy. The lesson of the Netherlands is that there is only so much you can do to change human nature, and the more you shut off the valves of debate and democracy, the more human nature — in all its ugliness — will assert itself, often violently." Enlargening MOMA and making it smaller Roger Kimball writes in The Spectator about the diminishment of the Museum of Modern Art: "After you empty your wallet, you process up and around into Taniguchi’s pièce de résistance: an enormous atrium off which are clustered the new museum’s galleries. As you walk up into the atrium, you pass under the 1960s Bell Helicopter, a signature artefact from MOMA’s department of design. It seems both minatory and diminutive in that barn-like foyer, but the real diminishments come when you step into the atrium proper. Visitors to Cesar Pelli’s MOMA will remember Monet’s gigantic, mural-like paintings of waterlilies. Well, they seemed gigantic in that old space. In Taniguchi’s depot, they seem like a couple of oversized postage stamps." The Economist The Hoover Digest reprints Tom Bethell's review of a pair Thomas Sowell's economics books that originally appeared in The American Spectator. It is a nice tribute to an economist that according to Sowell himself, "happened to come along right after the worst of the old discrimination was no longer there to impede me, and just before racial quotas made the achievements of blacks look suspect." Saturday, November 20, 2004
Government's condescension In her Regulation column on the silliness of Federal Emergency Management Agency's website for kids, Marni Soupcoff exposes how condescending the state can be toward both children and adults. She draws attention to a reminder by FEMA to parents of pre-verbal children that they will not be able to use words to describe their trauma. Soupcoff says, "You'd think that wouldn't be news to most grown-ups, who tend to realize that one of the downsides to being pre-verbal is the inability to talk." Little tidbit about Condi Rice Terry Teachout reports about the new Secretary State: "You may not know that Condoleezza Rice is a serious amateur pianist (she’s good enough to have played in public with Yo-Yo Ma a couple of years ago)." The world according to Wolfowitz Great interview by the man who should have replaced Colin Powell at State in Prospect magazine(British). It is all worth reading but note especially this argument for toughing it out in Iraq: "And it seems to me that it's a good strategic principle to help people to defend themselves. One of the most powerful images that stuck with me in Iraq was when a colonel in the 101st airborne division explained to his troops that what they were doing was like what his father, or their grandfathers, did in Japan and Germany: they're not just defeating evil in terrorism and Ba'athism, they're creating new allies. And one of these days I think Afghanistan and Iraq will be big contributors to the progress in the middle east that we desperately need." Wolfowitz also clarifies one of the central tenets of the so-called neoconservative foreign policy agenda: "Export of democracy isn't really a good phrase. We're trying to remove the shackles on democracy. What you would hope is that governments can be encouraged on a path of gradual reform because that's the best way to avoid the sort of cataclysm that will come otherwise. It is also much tougher where you've got a home-grown tyranny than where you had one that was basically the product of occupation, like Poland, because society gets to be more thoroughly corrupted. In this sense Iraq is more like Serbia." The Clinton standard Liberal historian Robert Dalleck's comments and inadvertent humour on the Adolescent President on NPR as reported by Tim Graham in The Corner: "Bill Clinton could become the measuring rod by which the Democrats make a comeback." From the annals of the Brave New World Washington Post reports the latest advance in Frankenstein science: chimeras almost a reality. The reality may not be as fun as the header ("Of mice, men and in-between"). Let's not open this Pandora's Box. The excuses continue Senator John Kerry blames the Osama bin Laden tape for his defeat on November 2, continuing the theme that America voted for President George W. Bush because he played the fear card. The Economist's Lexington column debunks that idea as it says that Bush won because he offered hope. Smart political strategists will tell you almost every election is about who has the best plan for the future, that is who offers the most hope. Thursday, November 18, 2004
More deep political celeba-commentary It's not quite Cameron Diaz, but here's Linda Ronstadt to USA Today: "People don't realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves ... It's like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we've got a new bunch of Hitlers." Four more years of neocons Jacob Heilbrunn of the Los Angeles Times writes about how the administration's critics, or more specifically the neonconservatives' critics, are wrong: "For months, critics of the administration have been crowing that if President Bush won reelection, he would dump the neoconservatives and replace them with cautious, realist foreign policy thinkers. Writing in the Financial Times, James Mann, a former Los Angeles Times reporter and author of a book about the Bush administration, dismissed neocon doctrine as a 'spent force' and said that the foreign policy realism of big shots such as Henry Kissinger is 'again ascendant.' The editor of Foreign Policy magazine, Moises Naim, scoffed that neoconservative ideas 'lie buried in the sands of Iraq.' On the right, Patrick J. Buchanan gloated that the "salad days" of the neocons were over. There is only one problem with the critics' scenario: The opposite of what they predicted is actually occurring." Gone are Colin Powell and Richard Armitage, staying are Elliott Abrams, Douglas J. Feith, and William J. Luti. In line for a promotion, John R. Bolton and in line for an appointment, Danielle Pletka (vice president of the American Enterprise Institute, probably as assistant secretary for East Asian affairs). And the most neocon of neocons, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, whom Heilbrunn speculate could "end up replacing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld." If Rummy is going to go, I hope so. And anti-Americanism spreads stupidity Pearls of wisdom from French President Jacques Chirac according to this article from the New York Times. He apparently said that the liberation of Iraq (i.e. war) has caused more terror. And, "To a certain extent Saddam Hussein's departure was a positive thing." And, my favourite, he "repeated his vision of a 'multipolar' world in which 'there will be a great American pole, a great European pole, a Chinese one, an Indian one, eventually a South American pole,' with the United Nations mediating." Multipolar is diplomatic speak for "French veto." They are all a waste of paper Washington Post columnist George F. Will has a number of serious questions for President George W. Bush's Secretary of State nominee Condi Rice, including this one: "Does the Genocide Convention require a more forceful response to the ongoing genocide in Darfur or is it, like the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war many wars ago, a waste of paper?" This may be the only easy question of the bunch. It's not the tactics, stupid It is worth reading Rolling Stone's look back at the US presidential election with David Gergen, Peter Hart and Ruy Teixeira. Gergen, an advisor to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, said this of why Senator John Kerry lost: "I think it would be too easy for Democrats to say, 'We lost because of some tactical mistakes Kerry made or because of his lack of likability.' Yes, he made some mistakes -- but he also ran one heck of a good campaign. He won all three debates, which no challenger has ever done. He raised more money than any Democrat in history and made the Democrats more competitive financially than ever before. And he raised the number of votes at the final election. John Kerry didn't lose this election; George Bush won it -- and there's a difference. Democrats would be deluding themselves if they said, 'If we just get a better candidate, we'll start winning all the time.' That's why it goes back to the notion that they've got to re-examine their ideas -- and whether they've got something fresh, interesting and compelling to offer the country." Man of the Year Hugh Hewitt in the Daily Standard: "[T]here is no other serious nominee for 'Man of the Year' except George W. Bush." The pick, as some have predicted, of Karl Rove would be too cute and, as Hewitt quotes Andrew Sullivan, would not be a great selling cover. And now for the recount Dino Rossi will become the first Republican governor of Washington state in a quarter-century assuming his 261 vote margin holds up. Good news all around for Canadian conservatives Best one stop shopping for stories and commentary on Fox in, Parrish out, Galgiano outed (as mafia) over at The Shotgun. Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Extra! Extra! Read the MSM doing it's job U.S. News and World Report has an in-depth examination of the role Iran is playing in the insurgency in Iraq. Safire on Powell, Rice New York Times columnist William Safire on the changes at the State Department. About the departing Secretary of State, Safire says he won't miss the mangling of the language that has been Colin Powell's habit: "Lord knows I have tried, over the years, to keep Colin Powell on the grammatical strait and narrow. And yet, announcing his resignation, the departing secretary of state said that after the president and he had 'fulsome discussions on it, we came to mutual agreement. ...' Fulsome means 'offensively excessive,' and when two people agree, it's always mutual. This otherwise good man is incorrigible." As for the incoming Secretary of State, Safire examines what Condi Rice means to the second Bush administration: "The center of decision-making gravity will move slightly to the right, with the necessary hard fist in a softer glove. Powell's inclination to settle was a counterweight to Rumsfeld's drive to win. Though the two stayed personally compatible - remarkable near the center of power, where differences are usually personalized - their Weltanschauungs diverged. Rice took pains to stay in the policy middle and on the operational fringe, the better to coolly advise the president. When she goes to State, will she adopt the Powell role as counterweight? Will she, as most Foggy Bottom secretaries do, 'go native' - be absorbed by the accommodationist mind-set that is the hallmark of professional diplomacy? Her friends tell me that she is more likely to surprise us skeptics, and to follow the pattern of one of her mentors, George Shultz, in taking control of the department in subtle ways. Let's hope so." New York politics Yesterday, the New York Sun reported that Democrat Charles Schumer has said he definitely would not run for Governor in 2006 and vowed to stay in the Senate until after the 2006 elections. His decision was influenced by two new posts he'll hold for the Dems in the Senate: a seat on the Finance Committee and the chairmanship of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. But note that while his term ends in 2010, he is only promising to stay until after 2006; might he have his eye on the Democratic presidential or vice presidential nomination? Schumer's announcement helps the Democrats avoid a bitter and expensive primary, leaving Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as the prohibitive favourite for the nomination. Today, the Sun reports that state Republicans want soon-to-be former Secretary of State Colin Powell to run for the GOP senate primary in 2006 in order to challenge Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton. The paper reports of this unlikely scenario, "The biggest question is whether Mr. Powell would have any desire to seek the job. He could make a lucrative living in the private sector - and enjoy his hobby of restoring old cars." Well, that and 1) would Mrs. Powell support the idea? (probably not) and 2) does Powell hold any hard feelings toward the party and the president that would prevent him from running? (probably). Rove, blogs & Michael Moore contending for Time man of the year AP reports that Karl Rove, "The Blogosphere," George W. Bush, "The Terrorist," Mel Gibson and Michael Moore are in the running for the magazine's end-of-the-year honour. (Michael Moore?) The article is worth reading especially for several tidbits such as why the Man of Year was initially given (an oversight early in the year of 1927) and who composes the panel deciding this year's honour (Andrew Sullivan, NBC News anchor Brian Williams, "activist" Rev. Al Sharpton, New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley, and FBI agent Coleen Rowley, one of the 2002 Persons of the Year which went to "The Whistleblowers.") Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Safire to retire his pen -- who will pick it up? Or keyboard or whatever. William Safire's twice weekly New York Times column will end in January, after gracing that paper's mostly graceless comment page for more than 30 years. His On Language column will continue to run in the New York Times Magazine each Sunday. Speculation on who will replace him will certainly enliven the conversation of Times' readers. Will the paper poach Washington Post columnist George F. Will, as they've tried in the past? (No.) Will it hire another conservative for the spot? (Maybe.) I received an email yesterday from someone who knows what happens on many of the nation's editorial boards and his best guesses are Colin Powell, David Frum or someone (un-named) from the Wall Street Journal. Briefly the arguments: Frum: His writing has appeared in the New York Times before and like Safire is a former White House speechwriter. However, he is very hawkish, too partisan and would have to give up too many other gigs. (When David Brooks signed on a as columnist last year, he had to give up his Atlantic Monthly job and his named diappeared from the masthead of the Weekly Standard.) A WSJ writer: The NYT prefers its conservatives to be non-partisan and without hard edges. They also want good writers that are either original thinkers and capable reporters. While my correspondent didn't give a name, Peggy Noonan would fit the bill very nicely. Added bonus: satisfies paper's desire to promote women. Powell: Moderate, dovish, tied to a Republican administration (as was Safire -- Nixon's), pro-choice (like Safire), "a person of colour" (Times policy to promote black writers whether they are qualified or not) and huge name recognition. Because the Times likes the syndication cash they get for their columnists, Powell's name would be a nice addition. However, it is implausible to suggest that Powell would choose to write full-time and therefore forfeit a profitable future in consulting or lobbying (as he is rumoured to be interested in doing). Other than Peggy Noonan, who may not even want to leave the WSJ, none of the names make any sense. Perhaps a Steve Chapman (Chicago Tribune) or Philip Terzian (Providence Journal) -- established journalists who are slightly more libertarian than conservative (like Safire) -- would fit the bill. An ideal choice and someone I would bet money on is Tony Snow, a former Detroit News columnist and Fox News host who also worked in the administration of George H.W. Bush. Another good choice would be Michael Barone -- he would probably have to give up his position at U.S. News and World Report, but the prestige and platform of the Times might be enticing. He's conservative but not partisan. I would say Jack Kemp is an ideal choice but he is unlikely to want to work for the Times full-time. And then there is the very good likelihood that Safire's spot will not be filled any time soon or if it is that the person will not be on the right-side of the political spectrum at all. New blogger on the block Welcome to Leith Coghlin. If his 50 Undeniable Truths are any sign, it will be a must-read blog. Consider, for example Undeniable Truths five through 10: 5. Liberal rule in Canada has meant Canadians think less and accept mediocrity more than they did 40 years ago 6. Choice does not constitute morality 7. Conservatism builds Canada up 8. Liberalism tears Canada down 9. I always prefer a socialist to a Liberal; the former tells you they will rob you while the latter befriends you, makes you trust them, then robs you 10. Dogs are superior to cats (Hat tip to Adam Daifallah) In case you were wondering 'What ever happened to Scott Ritter?' He's writing for Al-Jazeera. On the weekend he wrote that the success of American forces in Falluja is indicative that the future will be difficult for the U.S. in Iraq. You see, everyone expected fierce resistance in Falluja but there isn't which must mean, it's just gotta mean, there's trouble waiting another corner somewhere down the road. (Hat tip to Adam Daifallah) Monday, November 15, 2004
Yet another reason Dalton McGuinty sucks Last week the Fraser Institute noted that Ontario's place within the provincial ranking of investment climate fell from 2nd to 3rd. Mark Mullins, director of Ontario Policy Studies for the Institute said "The Ontario government’s decision to ramp up spending at a time of multi-billion dollar deficits, coupled with personal and business tax increases, has led to a serious deterioration in the province’s investment climate." Almost needless to say, Alberta was ranked first and the four Atlantic provinces finished 7, 8, 9 and 10. Interesting items destined to be lost in today's news cycle This is going to be a Colin Powell-free blogging area today because there are more notable stories including a U.S. Senate probe determining that Saddam turned a tidy $21 billion profit in the scandalous oil-for-food swindle and New York Senator Charles Schumer warned that President George W. Bush will have a fight on his hands if Justice Clarence Thomas is named Chief Justice William Rehnquist's replacement sometime down the road. Okay, that last item may not really qualify as news. The good news from Afghanistan Arthur Chrenkoff's bi-weekly run down of the unreported and under-reported good news from Afghanistan is available. Amidst all the economic and political progress that Chrenkoff lists is this tidbit: the emergence of body building as a hobby. Welcome to the 21st century, gentlemen. Most annoying Canadian So many to choose from, how does one choose a single candidate: Celine Dion, Svend Robinson, Jack Layton, Rick Mercer, etc... The Autonomous Sources poll has Sheila Copps just leading Warren Kinsella. That seems about right. (Hat tip to Neale News) Sunday, November 14, 2004
Refreshing scholarship In October, Alberto Abadiem, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, released a study entitled "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism." Worth reading although it still misses the real story: although political instability and oppression may go further than poverty to explain why there is terrorism, hateful ideas (ideology) is the root cause of terrorism. There is also an intersting section of hte paper that examines the role of geography in facilitating terrorism. The Halifax Herald ran this favourable editorial about it today which also ignores the ideological roots of terror. Still, every liberal should read the editorial's conclusion: "Poverty and negative economic shocks have been linked in previous studies to increased political instability such as coups and civil wars. But this new research shows us that terrorism is a different kind of problem, linked more to the struggles to establish political freedom than to unanswered grievances - however legitimate - of the poor." The Jews did it, Part 437,145 Over at Across the Board, Lorne Gunter responds to charges that Yasser Arafat was poisoned by Israelis: "I'm not sure he had AIDS, as some have speculated -- although that certainly is consistent with his symptoms. But I am certain he was not poisoned, otherwise the death certificate would have been on every frontpage in the world." You can judge a man by the funerals he attends Damian Penny noted: "The Prime Minister of Sweden couldn't be bothered to attend the memorial service for the Madrid train bombing victims - but he rushed to Arafat's funeral." This'll make you want to gag Trudeaupia has some thoughts to the comments by the NCC's Gerry Nicholls on the capricious nature of enforcing the federal gag law. Nicholls said: "It looks like Elections Canada has a selective policy when it comes to enforcing the gag law. The National Citizens Coalition was charged with violating the gag law because during the 2000 federal election we ran a 15 second TV ad warning Canadians about the gag law. Elections Canada says our ad was election advertising, even though we did not endorse any party or candidate. Indeed, the ad did not even mention the election. Skip forward to 2004. The Canadian Wheat Board ran ads during the federal election endorsing the Wheat Board monopoly -- which was an election issue. Some farmers urged Elections Canada to charge the Wheat Board with breaking the gag law. But Elections Canada refuses to lay charges." Nicholls outlines what the law says, what the NCC and Wheat Board both did in terms of election advertising and concludes: " Elections Canada is using the gag law to punish the NCC. It's just plain vindictive." The NCC has been extremely (and justifiably) critical of Election's Canada. Trudeaupia, on the other hands, sees ideology coming into play, noting that Michael Moore violated the gag law but we've heard not even a peep about that from the powers that be. What would have happen though, Trudeaupia wonders, "if a multimillionaire Republican had come to Canada to help the Conservatives during an election campaign they'd be charged. Imagine Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or an Evangelical preacher coming to Canada for a public appearance and slagging the Liberals in the middle of a campaign. The media and Elections Canada would go apoplectic." Well, nothing would happen. Concludes Trudeaupia: "These laws should be repealed even if they were evenly enforced. But they are particularly offensive when only applied against conservatives." What Do Liberals And Criminals Have In Common? My 14-year-old son, the biggest Canadian Dittohead, showed me this from realmenlistentorush.com: * Both take your money according to your ability to pay. * Both oppose the death penalty. * Both like gun control laws. * Neither likes cops. * If muggers outnumber you in a dark alley, they’ll rob you blind. If liberals outnumber you in Congress, they’ll do the same. * Liberals like the IRS and criminals don’t mind it. * Both see the rich as primary targets. * Both like to raid businesses. * Criminals and liberals prefer parole over jail time. * Both believe that prisons should have weight rooms, Jacuzzis and cable TV. * Both think they can spend your money better than you can. * Both like gun buy-back programs. * Neither likes the Ten Commandments. * Both claim that sexual harassment and perjury are private matters. * Both vote Democrat. * Both think that they’re misunderstood. Friday, November 12, 2004
One last thing ... Read the New York Sun editorial on Yasser Arafat, especially the first paragraph on why it was appropriate for him to die in France. I'm off for the weekend Speaking to the Ignite our Culture conference in Burlington, Ont., on Saturday to promote my book Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal, and a number of other events for socializing. In the meantime check out Relapsed Catholic (for religious and cultural issues), Adam Daifallah (for politics), David Mader (international and US politics) and The Shotgun (everything). Daifallah also has a great list of Canadian blogs. But come back on Sunday night or Monday. Blame Israel and America first All the problems in the Middle East (which for some reason is always defined as only Israel, the West Bank and Gaza) can be fixed if the United States and Israel would just compromise. So say Jimmy Carter and Jordian King Abdullah II in separate New York Times columns. I am not sure what compromise there is with people (Hamas, for example) who want all the Jews pushed into the sea? Perhaps if President Bush talks to Prime Minister Sharon about agreeing to have half the Israelis commit suicide, peace can finally be achieved. Rise of the video game The Economist reports that video game sales now exceed box office receipts. Furthermore, the mobile gaming market will exceed $1 billion this year. Perhaps he came to terms with Bush J. Kelly Nestruck said at the beginning of the week that he was going to work out his thoughts on President George W. Bush's re-election and called his initial offering, "First in a Series". Should we presume that without any new posts in four days -- an eternity in the blogosphere -- that Nestruck has found peace with the verdict of the electrate by our southern neighbours? Harper's lurch to the left Adam Daifallah adds his voice to those raising concerns about Stephen Harper's new found moderation: "Harper's recent behaviour is not a good sign." Thursday, November 11, 2004
The always enjoyable Theodore Dalrymple Prison doctor and Spectator columnist Theodore Dalrymple writes of a conversation he had with a patient: "I had a long talk with a disenchanted (or should I say unenchanted?) youth last week. He had tried to hang himself, but had been cut down by his mother. I asked him why he had done it. ‘Life’s shit,’ he said. Well, at least one couldn’t accuse him of longwindedness. I asked him whether he had any friends. ‘A few.’ ‘What do you talk about?’ I asked. ‘About all the things that piss us off.’ Come to think of it, my conversation is not so very different. But I flatter myself that my complaints are elegantly phrased, and furthermore entirely justified. ‘What annoys you?’ I asked. ‘That we live in such a shit area and have to smoke cannabis all the time.’ ‘You don’t absolutely have to smoke cannabis,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing else to do.’ ‘Are you sure that there’s nothing to do because you smoke cannabis rather than the other way round?’" If at first you don't succeed ... Exhibit A in the Left's attempt at political suicide: Michael Moore will produce a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11. The loonier the Left gets, the harder it will be for Democrats to capture moderate voters. Moore doesn't get this. He explains the need for part II thusly: "Fifty-one percent of the American people lacked information (in this election) and we want to educate and enlighten them ... They weren't told the truth. We're communicators and it's up to us to start doing it now." It wasn't that the Left didn't get its message out this election cycle but that it was heard and rejected. Anyway, keep up the great work, Mike. Mandela on Arafat From Ha'aretz : "Yasser Arafat was one of the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation, one who gave his entire life to the cause of the Palestinian people." Well he gave his life to the Palestinian people and amassing $3 billion. A call for Canadian conservative leadership Ghost of a Flea wonders where the Conservatives are on defending liberty after Harper's prevarication on missile defence. More on Arafat The Daily Telegraph obit was disappointingly "fair" and "balanced" as it couched the term terrorist by putting it in the mouths of Israelis ("many Israelis reviled him as 'the face of terror'"). More than just Israelis reviled him as such. You can always depend on the New York Sun to call a terrorist a terrorist -- and in the fourth word of their obit: "Yasser Arafat, the terrorist leader bent on destroying Israel who insisted he wanted to die a martyr to the Palestinian cause, managed instead to die of natural causes last night at a hospital in Clamart, France." The Sun's article is the most thorough treatment of Arafat's death I've seen yet. My sentiments are expressed succinctly in the first words of the New York Post's editorial: "Good riddance. The world is better off without him." They note that his actions more than any Israeli policy "kept the Palestinian people in misery, their political dreams unrealized and their daily lives a litany of wretchedness." Pray that the lot of Palestinians improve under whatever new leadership emerges. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby says Arafat "left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves." In a just world, Jacoby correctly says, Arafat would not have died peacefully in bed surrounded by loved ones -- something which he denied to thousands. Max Boot writes in the Los Angeles Times that Arafat joins the likes of Mao Tse-tung, Sukarno, Robert Mugabe, Moammar Kadafi and Gamal Abdel Nasser -- "devotees of the Louis XIV school of political philosophy." And like these other monsters, Boot notes, Arafat was lionized by the deep thinkers in the West even as he terrorized his own people. And lastly, Rush Limbaugh noted on his radio program today that the reason Arafat likely chose to die in France was that it is one of the few countries in which a cause of death is not required. I am not sure if that means if the cause of death is made public or even listed on a death certificate, but either way it is interesting. Perhaps David Frum is right. Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Yasser Arafat, father of a terrorist movement, dead at 75 Let the he-was-a-statesman-treatment begin. Exhibit A: The New York Times. Even when describing his terrorist activities, the paper seems unable to get rid its adulatory tone. While the obituary does refer to Arafat's terrorist acts, it is not until the 1313th word that the author Judith Miller uses the word terrorist and even then the she only employs the term to further her argument that he was enigmatic: "He was also all things to all people terrorist, statesman, dreamer, pragmatist, his people’s warrior, his people’s peacemaker." Later references to Arafat the terrorist were couched in equivocations (critics called him ... or to the Iraelis he was...). We'll have to wait for the New York Sun editorial for an honest assessment of this thug's life and call him not a leader, not the personifaction of the Palestinian cause (Exhibit B, the Washington Post: "For Arafat, His Life Personified His Dream"), but a terrorist. Those obits that do mention the terrorism thing (Exhibit C, Reuters: "Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who rose from guerrilla icon to Nobel prize-winning peacemaker...") imply that he moved beyond terrorism in recent years when, at the very least, he had a very high threshold of tolerance for it as a weapon against Israel. Exhibit D: the Associated Press has a timeline of Arafat's life that does not include one terrorist act (the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics) to which he was linked. British Tories lurch left Item 1: Tory leader Michael Howard proposes that new fathers be allowed shared time off with pay capped at 150 pounds a week. (The Daily Telegraph story on the issue does not mention any dollar amount.) Item 2: Tory leader Michael Howard endorsed embryonic stem cell research. Bush's leadership helped him win Jay Cost at the no-longer-operational Horserace blog, has a valuable analysis of both why the Republicans did well and the Democrats didn't. Near the end of the former he captures the essence of why people admire Bush: "The president had made a conscious decision to spend his political capital on the Iraq war, rather than parlay it into his reelection bid. Note that this is the sign of a gutsy politician and a true leader; Clinton would never have risked his reelection on an issue of policy." That is, Bush won because he was a political leader, not a politician. People sensed that he did not do things out of political calculation but because he felt it was the right thing to do. Until the Democrats find someone who genuinely wants to advance a real (even liberal) agenda instead of just him or herself (ahem, Hillary), they will be kept out of the White House for foreseeable future. After two decades in public life, Kerry ready to do something The Washington Post reported earlier this week that he "plans to use his Senate seat and long lists of supporters to remain a major voice in American politics despite losing the presidential race last Tuesday." This is a senator who had nothing to run on despite three terms in the U.S. Senate. Now, he plans to get involved. The article also notes that Kerry has not ruled out a run for the presidency in 2008. Recall that Al Gore running in 2004 was all the rage in days after the SCOTUS decision in December 2000. I'm dubious about either prospects -- Kerry running again or him being an effective legislator because of his supposed broad base of support. As the Post reported: "Several Democrats expressed skepticism about Kerry's plans, saying they believe the party needs a fresh face and must turn a corner. One well-known Democratic operative who worked with the Kerry campaign said opposition to Bush, not excitement about Kerry, was behind the senator's fundraising success. 'If he thinks he's going to capitalize on that going forward, he's in for a surprise,' said the operative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity." Mader on Ashcroft David Mader makes a simple observation that thoroughly refutes the hysterical rantings of Attorney General John Ashcroft's critics: "He's certainly been the subject of more criticism than any other administration member with the exception of the President himself. And regarding that criticism, it's worth noting that the Constitution is still here, and that it hasn't endured any more damage that it did under Janet Reno (though that's really damning by faint praise). Certainly we haven't seen an assault on the Constitution of the sort waged by Franklin Roosevelt, whose New Deal vision of government is held sacred by many of Ashcroft's critics." Note to Left: something is not unconstitutional, even anti-constitutional, just because a policy or worldview differs from your own. Not a great way to pass the time Your porn name generator kinda, em, sucks. What Japanese Smiley are you? is simply stupid. (I'm the "Face with glasses.") Well, this was not time well wasted so back to reading the papers and blogs so I can learn about the two old California ladies who really liked cats to the tune of collecting 81 strays. (Thanks Saintly Salmagundi for the link.) The principle purpose of the internet: time wasting Which Monty Python and the Holy Grail character are you? Me: "You are Sir Bedevere! Wise and creative, you are able to counsel others as well as come up with some really ingenious plans of attack...sort of." What political persuasion are you? Me: "You make up the conservative, Christian, dedicated core of the Republican Party. You believe it's important for religious people to stand up for their beliefs in politics. And for you, this means voting your conscience - which almost always means voting Republican. Your pet causes include the sanctity of life, school vouchers, and prayer in school." I agree with this assessment until it presumes to know what my my pet issues are. For the record, my three pet issues are 1) eliminating abortion, 2) respecting private property rights and 3) getting taxes as low as possible. I went back and played with the answers but this faulty test wants to put almost anyone who supports faith-based social programs and opposes abortion as part of the hardcore Religious Right. (Hat tip to Irish Elk) How not to win voters and influence Red America In what may be the best opening in a columm ever, George F. Will opens his Washington Post column yesterday with this zinger: "In 2000 Americans were reminded that electoral votes select presidents. In 2004 Democrats were reminded that Bruce Springsteen does not." There are plenty of interesting little factoids (as CNN insists on calling them) such as these: * President George W. Bush carried not only North Carolina but Senator John Edwards' home county. * Clark County, the object of The Guardian's interference in a foreign election, was the only Ohio county that voted for Al Gore in 2000 and George Bush in 2004. * Broadcasters took forever to call Ohio for Bush but quickly put Pennsylvania in the Senator John Kerry column. The margin of victory for each candidate in each state: 136,483 and 127,927 votes respectively. * Oklahoma Democratic Senate candidate and ostensible "moderate" Brad Carson only talked about his admiration for Senator Joe Lieberman when asked about how he could support Senator John Kerry for president. |
