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).

 
Politics, judges and the media

Bob Tarantino:

"Apropos of this piece in TNR by Cass Sunstein on recent decisions of the US Supreme Court, let us note that thoughtful public intellectuals in the United States are continually engaged in discussions about the consequences of having a conservative/liberal president appointing conservative/liberal justices (see also here and here for the rather enjoyable spectacle of watching liberal commentators splutter in astonishment). Let us also note that, for the most part, the Canadian commentariat, media and legal establishment absolutely refuse to even consider the possibility that the exact same dynamic occurs in this country."

I was thinking about this and more throughout the week as both the Canadian and U.S. Supreme Courts handed down various decisions. But that is not the only way in which Canadian journalists fail their readers when it comes to the courts. There was a lot to read by way of commentary and analysis -- online, trad media, think tanks, etc... -- south of the border this week in regards to the SCOTUS decisions. Not so much here in Canada. There is, in fact, little serious discussion outside academia about Canadian court decisions -- perhaps precisely because the courts are considered beyond politics. And perhaps that is why Canadians seem to so willingly defer to our judicial masters. Just a thought.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:28 AM

 
The three Rs

Conservatives have joked in recent years that the new three Rs of education are reproduction, recycling and racism. Further proof of the second R, recycling, comes from this National Post story yesterday:

"Ontario will be distributing hundreds of donated copies of Al Gore's controversial documentary on climate change to public schools across the province...

A spokeswoman for the [Education] ministry added: 'We're not saying that Al Gore's got it right; what we're saying is climate change is an important thing to be talking about.."

And here's my nominee for Canadian of the year, Michael Chernnoff:

"Vancouver-based businessman Michael Chernoff says his charitable foundation will provide to Canadian high schools DVD copies of the new British documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle, featuring interviews with scientists who dissent from Mr. Gore's claims.

'The students deserve the other side,' said Mr. Chernoff, who has served as the director of oil, gas and renewable energy companies."

I doubt that he will be successful getting The Great Global Warming Swindle into many schools. Educrats are saying that the Gore DVD is part of the "debate" students and teachers will have about climate change, but I can't see them endorsing any alternative material. Indeed, many teachers are probably not aware of opposing views on this issue. Four or five years ago my oldest son had an elementary school assignment in which he had to write a letter to (then) Prime Minister Jean Chretien urging him to implement Kyoto. I talked to the teacher and said that Patrick would not be participating in this particular assignment for two reasons: it is inappropriate to use students for political purposes and that the Tuns household (Patrick included) did not support Kyoto or believe that global warming was 1) actually occurring, 2) bad for the planet, and 3) caused by man. The teacher, who was pursuing a masters in environmental sciences, was entirely unaware of arguments against global warming. He said that he thought that only "big business" opposed Kyoto or doubted the science. Considering that there are teachers this ignorant, I have little confidence about the forthcoming environmental debate in our schools.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:43 AM

 
Gas prices and the case against anti-gouging legislation

The Council of Economic Advisors says that gouging is not a definable economic term; furthermore, existing laws should prevent collusion and other anti-competitive policies.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:03 AM

 
US trade deficit may not be as big as people think,
and why it doesn't matter if it is

Trade deficits are necessarily a bad thing -- it is good that people can afford lots of foreign goods -- but Mark Perry explains why the trade deficit might be overstated:

"Our $250 billion 'trade deficit' with China is probably hugely overstated because of misleading trade calculations used by the Dept. of Commerce. If the import value of the iPod is overstated by a factor of 75X, think of all of the other similar products imported from China that are probably also grossly overstated!"

How does Perry come to that conclusion? By looking at a study by the Sloan Foundation (using information from Portelligent) and commented upon by Computerworld:

"Given that the product is manufactured overseas, one might assume that most of the value goes there. In fact, the brand that creates the product reaps a substantial portion of the returns. And when iPods are shipped to the U.S. for sale here, 55% of the purchase price goes back to U.S.-based firms. How ironic, then, that the federal government attributes most of the iPod’s value to China, boosting the trade deficit when it receives the smallest slice of the pie."

More on where the iPod is produced (451 indvidual parts produced around the world but assembled in China) can be found in the New York Times.

Still, economic systems are not about companies or labour but consumers -- providing the products that consumers want at prices consumers want to pay. As long as slave labour is not being used, no one should care too much about where or how products are created.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:32 AM

 
Muslim garb a health hazard

Women in the United Arab Emirates suffer from vitamin D deficiency. According to Reuters:

"As reported in the June issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Saadi and colleagues at the United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, studied vitamin D levels in 90 women who were breastfeeding and 88 women who had never given birth. Many dressed to cover their whole bodies, including their hands and faces, while outside of their homes.

Only two of the women, one in each group, were not vitamin D deficient at study."

Even with vitamin supplements, most of the women still did not have sufficient levels of vitamin D.

(HT: William Saletan)
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:28 AM

 
Stop discriminating!

The Supreme Court of the United States has limited the use of race as a basis of achieving diversity within the education system by invaliding two such programs* in Seattle and Jefferson County (Louisville, Kentucky). In the majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." You would think we wouldn't need this to be said, but apparently declaring the obvious is a necessary component of jurisprudence in this day and age.

Over at the SCOTUS Blog, Tom Goldstein warns against reading too much into this decision. Why? Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy specifically takes issue with the notion that the decision outlaws programs designed to increase in diversity. Kennedy says that the use of race as a determinant in school assignment would be permissible "if necessary" -- such as when other measures has been tried and not worked.

* Outlined here.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:28 PM

 
Another reason to dislike Coulter

Every time Ann Coulter talks about Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards, he benefits. She calls him gay, he raises $300,000; she wishes Edwards was killed by terrorists, he uses it as a fundraising tool. It seems that Edwards needs Coulter.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:15 AM

 
Against McCain-Feingold

It cannot be surprising that George F. Will uses his Washington Post column today to write about this week's SCOTUS decision that allows American politics to take a step closer to deregulated speech (that is, free speech). The Supreme Court ruled in favour of Wisconsin Right to Life and against the anti-free speech McCain-Feingold regulations on third-party involvement in politics. Will reiterates the case against McCain-Feingold:

"McCain-Feingold's ostensible purpose is to prevent corruption (which has long been proscribed by many other laws) or the "appearance" of it, which is difficult to define and measure, and hence is problematic to proscribe. But it is telling that McCain-Feingold restricts not just for-profit corporations but also nonprofits, such as WRTL, whose threat of corruption is . . . what?

McCain-Feingold's actual purpose is to protect politicians from speech that annoys them. That is why McCain says he regrets WRTL's victory, because it will allow groups 'to target a federal candidate in the days and weeks before an election.'

In his concurrence, Scalia said that McCain-Feingold involves 'wondrous irony.' It ostensibly was written to restrain entities with 'immense aggregations of wealth' that have 'corrosive and distorting effects.' These supposedly powerful entities were not powerful enough to prevent passage of the law. What the law actually muzzled faster than you can say 'Michael Bloomberg' was little WRTL."

The sooner the court stops chipping away at McCain-Feingold and simply gets rid of it, the better.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:24 AM

 
What's sick is continued support for socialized medicine

David Gratzer is a neocon when it comes to the health care debate. At one time he supported socialized medicine but then, he admits, he was mugged by reality. Since then he has published three books and numerous article on health care, all which advocate greater use of market mechanisms to improve health care systems. Writing in today's Wall Street Journal, Gratzer criticizes Michael Moore for his advocacy of universal, state-run health care. Never mind that Moore pointing to the European model is completely bogus -- there is no European model. There is an almost bewildering array of health systems in Europe; what they have in common is some mix of private and public provision -- sort of like the United States and little like Canada, although even here that is changing -- but other than that, there are as many different systems as there are European countries.

Anyway, Gratzer wonders what there is to like about Euro-care:

"In Britain, the Department of Health recently acknowledged that one in eight patients wait more than a year for surgery. Around the time Mr. Moore was putting the finishing touches on his documentary, a hospital in Sutton Coldfield announced its new money-saving linen policy: Housekeeping will no longer change the bed sheets between patients, just turn them over. France's system failed so spectacularly in the summer heat of 2003 that 13,000 people died, largely of dehydration. Hospitals stopped answering the phones and ambulance attendants told people to fend for themselves."

And what about that socialist paradise, Sweden? Gratzer notes that in "Sweden, after the latest privatizations, the government will contract out some 80% of Stockholm's primary care and 40% of total health services."

And in Canada? Gratzer quotes Dr. Brian Day, president of the Canadian Medical Association (and a private clinic owner): "This is a country, in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which humans can wait two to three years."

It's a wonder anyone could continue to advocate what Moore does -- universal, state-run healthcare. And for those that continue to adhere to such statism, consider the case of Lindsay McGreith, noted by Gratzer at the beginning of the column. This YouTube video demonstrates how the Canadian health care system is far from efficient, effective or just.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:04 AM

 
George Bush's lame duck period has begun

And it will cost the president Iraq. From David Frum's Diary:

"On immigration, President Bush has gone way beyond spending political capital; he has now maxed out his political credit cards. He will not be able to ask Congress for anything else. Which raises the question: What happens when the surge comes up for review in September? Has the president in effect sacrificed Iraq for immigration amnesty?"
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:55 PM

 
The gas-price gap

Stephen Dubner (the less famous half of Freakonomics) reads that RV rentals are expected to rise 20% this year leading him to ponder the gas-price gap:

"It may be obvious, but still, I don’t hear it being talked about all that much: the gas-price gap. For all the talk about the income gap in this country, the education gap, and roughly a half-million other gaps, the gas-price gap strikes me as more significant than we let on. To a working class family with two jobs, three kids, and a house 10 miles from the grocery store, school, and work, the recent spike in gas is a major burden. To a middle class family that lives nearer to amenities — and probably drives a newer and more fuel-efficient car — the price hike is more of a mental disturbance than a real hardship."

A mental disturbance is a nice way to put the rise in gas prices that seem to so bother the average driver. My mother can be put off for the whole evening if she filled the car up at 104.9/l in the morning only to find that the price of gas has fallen to 101.9 by supper-time. Not a hardship but a mental disturbance. Which raises the question of whether politicians should pander to such mental disturbances? Perhaps it would be better to target relief (if necessary and whatever form it might take) to those who truly need it.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:41 PM

 
Seeing red forever

The International Herald Tribune reports that Chinese president Hu Jintao said that any attempt to modernize Red China's political system must not threaten one-party rule. Hu is also leader of the Chinese communist party. Hu noted that while he is open to greater popular participation in the political sphere, any changes, the IHT reports Hu saying, "should 'advance the self-perfection in the development of the socialist political system' while preserving the Communist Party's monopoly on political power." I can't help but think that Western capitalists and conservatives will point to the tiny incremental step toward "democracy" (in which the Reds will still play in Hu's words a "leading role") as vindication that liberalizing the Chinese economy would be followed with a liberalization in the political sphere.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:29 PM

 
Limoliberal Heather Mallick

Over at The Shotgun, Jordan Michael Smith links to yet another silly Heather Mallick column (they are all silly) but before doing so describes her ... eccentricities:

"Heather Mallick, formerly of the Globe and now of cbc.ca, has always seemed to me a walking version of a conservative's stereotype of a radical. She's transparently self-absorbed but feigns care for all living in what used to be called the third world; she loves high-priced consumer goods but espouses socialism; she pretends to be 'of the people' but has contempt for non-intellectuals and religious folk; and she persistently rebukes people (even Tony Blair) for not reading enough but actually has little understanding of international affairs."
posted by Paul Tuns at 3:02 PM

 
Giant penguins once roamed Peru

CTV reported a few days back that five-foot penguins lived in Peru 40 million years ago. This throws off scientific estimates that penguins did not move northwards toward warmer climates until 10 million years ago. I am tempted to say that perhaps the climate models scientists have been using are not quite correct. That's one possibility. Another is that "scientific" methods to date things from the past might be suspect. Science means repeatably testing -- and observing -- things. By definition, human beings cannot observe (and therefore definitively test) something tens of millions of years old. I am not being anti-science, merely asking that it be more modest in its claims. And that the public understand science's limits. All that said, five-foot penguins with spear-like beaks are something quite exciting.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:27 AM

 
Why Bloomberg

George F. Will notes in his Newsweek column that successful third-party or independent candidates* needs three things: "vivid personality, a burning issue and a regional base." New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg does not have any of those. Bloomberg is as boring as grass, there is no strong national constituency for banning trans fats or cigarettes, and it is unclear whether he would even make much difference in New York. Will concludes:

"The two major parties are sensitive market mechanisms: What makes Bloomberg think they are failing to supply something the public strongly demands? Where the parties are failing to 'get things done,' it is because people disagree about what ought to be done. It is said, with exquisite vacuousness, that Bloomberg represents 'post-partisanship.' If so — if he is not a partisan of any large, controversial causes — why is he needed?"

There is only one case for Bloomberg, and I don't think it holds. The partisanship in the United States is toxic; it threatens the body politics as it polarizes Americans along often mindless party lines. If Bloomberg could arrest or reverse this divisiveness, he might serve some useful purpose -- if not uniting Americans, at least bringing them closer to together. But I don't think he can do it. (I'm not sure anyone can although an independent Rudy Giuliani presidential run might have.) A Bloomberg candidacy serves no purpose other than to stroke his ego and enrich numerous political strategists and other hangers-on.

* Will defines "successful" third-party candidates as ones who affect the outcome of an election, although not necessarily by winning it: "[E]ven successful independent or third-party candidates have one thing in common: They lose."
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
Failed states

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Fund for Peace rank the 60 states "most at risk of failure." Sudan tops (bottoms) the list and eight of the 10 least stable states are from sub-Saharan Africa. The Foreign Policy website has the story and useful links including map and listing and the magazine has the full story. Noting that the African nations are "neglected," the FP website says:

"That is not to say that all failing states suffer from international neglect. Iraq and Afghanistan, the two main fronts in the global war on terror, both suffered over the past year."

Not that Iraq and Afghanistan were nice places before international intervention and they demonstrated that stability is not a good in itself. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was remarkably "stable" but hardly a place where liberty would flourish.

There is good news, however. Both Russia and China -- home to well more than 1.5 billion people -- improved their stability scores enough to escape the bottom 60. There is still much room for improvement, of course, but it is better that these two giants (of political, military, and economic significance) are more stable. It is one thing to shake up Middle East geopolitics to help disrupt the terror networks (and their state sponsors); it is quite another to risk the catastrophe that turmoil in Moscow and Beijing could unleash.

Similarly, two of the 15 most vulnerable -- North Korea and Pakistan -- are nuclear powers. Containment is not enough; something -- I'm not sure what -- needs to be done to ensure stability and sane leadership in those two countries.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:45 AM

 
Help Steve Janke

He's been harassed by a "prominent member of Paul Martin's inner circle." Lawyers cost a lot and Steve -- could better known as Angry in the Great White North -- use some donations.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:56 AM

 
Because more talk will stop the genocide

From the Financial Times:

"The French government will seek to put a Gallic stamp on efforts to resolve the conflict in Darfur on Monday when it hosts a hurriedly arranged meeting of foreign ministers and officials."
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:52 AM

 
Love this anecdote

From a Financial Times editorial on the weekend:

"Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, a keen gardener and very wealthy banker of the 1930s: 'No garden, however small,' he said to the City Horticultural Society, 'should contain less than two acres of rough woodland'."
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:47 AM

 
The case against conservative infrastructure

From the relapsed one:

"It's been said that Canada needs a conservative infrastructure of think tanks, publishing houses, etc like the Americans have. But would that really be a good thing?

Doesn't the lack thereof at least discourage some of us from becoming unprincipled careerist hacks?"

I get her point and her larger point which is that few who call themselves conservatives really are. But perhaps a few more conservatives would remain principled if there were more outlets for their conservatism other than political parties.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:43 AM

 
Do we need a national cat strategy?

If this Halifax Herald article is merely noting that different municipalities have different cat licensing rules, it is an interesting story. If it is anything more than that, I don't see the point. Toronto has cat licensing but it is estimated that more than 90% of cats are not registered. In Regina, cats that are not neutered as supposed to be licensed but few are. Calgary just began licensing and already there are three times more licensed cats in Cow Town than there are in Hog Town, perhaps pointing to more civic mindedness and law abiding in Alberta than Ontario. Halifax is trying to figure out what to do and Vancouver has decided it doesn't need to do anything. In other words, as in most policy areas, local government can decide what fits the needs of the community.
posted by Paul Tuns at 3:12 PM

 
Great soccer news, sad soccer news

The Netherlands beat Serbia 4-1 in the under-21 European finals and its was a great game to watch with scintillating offense by both sides; the Dutch were able to break away from Serbia's off-side trap and Serbian strikers successfully beat an anemic looking Dutch defense (though fortunately only scored once). NAC Breda's Maceo Rigters is a swift, scoring threat up the middle and it is no wonder that he was the tourney's leading scorer. Daniel de Ridder, who plays for Spain's Celta de Vigo, is a great playmaker and dangerous on the wings, as is midfielder Royston Drenthe of Feyenoord (and Edgar Davids look-a-like without the glasses). Luigi Bruins was a great replacement in the second half and the Feyenoord midfielder created several scoring opportunities near the end of the game before finally scoring at the 87th minute. But the highlight must be Ryan Babel, the 20-year-old Ajax star who demonstrated (once again) why he warrants comparison to Thierry Henry. He is tenacious, a great ball-handler, he doesn't go to the ground needlessly and never complains. And of course, he can score (except for a missed penalty shot that would have made it 5-1). I hope that Milan gets Babel when Ajax decides to sell him, continuing the tradition of Dutch superstars (Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard) playing for the Rossoneri.

Speaking of Henry, the Tuns household is saddened by the news that he will be leaving Arsenal for Barcelona. It will be wonderful to watch him play alongside Ronaldinho -- they are probably the two more exciting players to watch and together they could play magical soccer. But then there are rumours that the Brazilian is on the move. Lucky for Barca to have Henry, I doubt there are many who can fill his boots for Arsenal. Perhaps Babel?

Anyway, getting excited about the upcoming soccer seasons. It was very wise of God to schedule the seasons of European soccer and American baseball in a way that we are never without both.
posted by Paul Tuns at 2:38 PM

 
The law is an ass, but the judge is f**king idiot

That was the subject line on an email from a friend who forwarded an editorial from the Montreal Gazette about the punishment handed down to a rapist who pled guilty to raping eight women in the Montreal suburbs. The rapist threatened his victims with a gun or a knife, committed barbaric acts in raping them but he will be released in less than six years. The editorial stated:

"When police finally had enough information for a sketch of the rapist, they joked it looked a lot like one of their fellow police officers, Benoit Guay, a 13-year veteran of the Montreal force.

It was no joke. Guay was sentenced this month to eight years in prison on eight charges of armed sexual assault. That would work out to just one year per rape if the justice system didn't calculate time spent in prison before and during trial counts as double. He spent 16 months in preventive custody, so has just over five years left to serve.

This would be outrageous in any event, but to fully grasp exactly how lightly this man, a police officer, is getting off, let's look at the details of his final sexual assault.

Still happy in the glow of her 15th-birthday celebrations, she arrived by bus in St. Jerome when a man grabbed her, threatening her with a gun. He raped and sodomized her. It is difficult to see where in this a judge might find ground to believe Guay can be safely released into the community in fewer than six years.

Quebec Court Judge Micheline Dufour, however, uncovered extenuating circumstances where a less credulous member of the bench might not. According to La Presse, she extolled the fact Guay did not commit any of his crimes while he was on the job.

How on Earth can Quebecers have confidence in their justice system when such a preposterous notion is put forward? Dufour also accepted without pause the joint submission by the Crown and the defence that Guay be sentenced to eight years.

A single rape conviction can result in a maximum sentence of 14 years. Where did one year per assault come from in this case? Was the court grateful that he pleaded guilty instead of fighting the charges in court?"
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:50 PM

 
Nurse Bloomberg's '08 effect

It's way too early to tell whether Michael Bloomberg is electable (unlikely), hurts Democrats or Republicans more (probably the Dems in some states and Republicans in others -- for example shaving 10% of Democrats in California puts that state back into play) or whether he's really in the race at all (I'd bet against it).

The New York Sun "reports" that there are scenarios in which he can win. It would be fairer to say that Bloomberg can have a major influence in '08. If he does run he may initiate a political realignment or quicken one that is underway (the libertarian-liberal alliance that Brink Lindsey likes to talk about, perhaps?)

All that said, I subscribe to Jim Geraghty's theory that Nurse Bloomberg could be fueling the idea that he is interested in running for president in 2008 because that makes every one of his press conferences and interviews more important or at least better covered.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:39 PM

 
SiCKO in 56 words

The Cato Institute's Michael F. Cannon's complete review of Michael Moore's latest:

"SiCKO was a very funny film, and I praise Michael Moore for starting the conversation and pointing out many horrors of the U.S. health care system.

But from a policy standpoint – and I say this more in sadness than in anger – SiCKO was so breathtaking a specimen of ignorant propaganda that it would make Pravda blush."
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:35 PM

 
Me in Report Magazine

My cover story in the current Report Magazine is on organ donation and the organ trade. Here's the conclusion:

"Kilgour and Matas may not be successful in transforming the transplantation trade, but they have succeeded in getting the Canadian media to treat the issue as a genuine human rights complaint. There is further hope that Ottawa's increasingly tough line with Beijing will also result in discussions about the illicit use of organs. But a legal free market or not, market forces will find ways for supply to meet demand. It is too bad that, unlike the free market, China's transplant tourism does not benefit everyone in voluntary exchange."
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:00 AM

 
Me at LifeSite

I'm quoted in this LifeSiteNews.com story on the New York Daily News style guide and how it deals with the abortion issue.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:19 PM

 
Commandments of economics

NotSoSneaky! and Dani Rodrik have a bunch of economic commandments. Best one is the first one:

"The answer to most questions in economics is usually 'It depends'."

Whether that is true or not it reminds me of a story once told by George Will in a column. A person waiting for a train in England asks when the train will arrive. The ticket salesman said "that depends." The customer asks on what it depends. The employee says, "that too depends." Life is like that.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:15 PM

 
Latest Interim

This week I have been working on the July issue of The Interim; here's the cover art by Ron Cote for the centerspread story by Leon Kass (a reprint) on the post-human future.
































Ronnie is a great, if edgy, artist and I'm glad that he does both editorial cartoons and some of our cover art at The Interim.

The May issue of the paper is online. Of note:

My cover story, "Is Canada disappearing: If demography is destiny, this country is in trouble." It's not all complaining as I also quote (at length) from Mark Steyn's America Alone on how to tackle population decline by arresting falling birth rates. There is also an editorial in which we marry two current hot issues, birth rates and immigration:

"Immigration is not the issue. The problem is not with 'new Canadians,' but precisely, that we now think of migrants in those terms. 'New Canadians' should not come to us from distant lands, but from delivery rooms. Immigrants to this country are new Canadians, not new Canadians. Citizens should not be created only in the oath of citizenship, but rather within the vows of marriage. The new life of a nation should be the product of love and commitment. Too often, it is not."

See also:

Tony Gosgnach's obituary of June Callwood.

Our continuing coverage of retired Justice Roy McMurtry.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:45 PM

 
Blogging will return after the weekend

Lots of other commitments are taking up my time right now. An early Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there.
posted by Paul Tuns at 2:49 PM

 
Atlantic discord

Gerry Nicholls finds three lessons in the split between the Harper government and Atlantic Canada Progressive Conservatives over the Atlantic accord on Ottawa handouts to eastern Canada:

"1. There's no pleasing Red Tories.

2. The Tories are dreaming in technicolour if they think the "fiscal imbalance" issue is over.

3. Canada is a tough country to govern."

There is another: once you begin buying off regions or groups (including middle class voters) there is no limit or end -- there can never be enough handouts.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:19 AM

 
Stop the presses! The whole climate change problem is about to be solved

The Financial Times reports that the UN will hold a summit on the environment in September. And another one in December. Perhaps they will have better luck with New York and Bali than they did with Rio and Johannesburg.
posted by Paul Tuns at 2:23 PM

 
Strip to save the planet

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has announced a no-tie, no-jacket policy for government employees for the summer as government offices will set the air conditioner at 26 degrees Celsius. It will save energy and is thus environmentally friendly.
I think Mr. McGuinty is being modest. Why only raise the AC to 26? And why only no-ties and no-jackets?
posted by Paul Tuns at 2:18 PM

 
Don't look now

The New York Yankees have had a miserable first third of a season, spending time in the division basement and remaining about 10 games (or more) out of first for the past month. But this is too good of a team to be sub-500 and it was just a matter of time 'til they turned things around. They have won five of seven while the Boston Red Sox have lost four in a row and one of the top contenders for the wild card, the Chicago White Sox, have lost nine of eleven. In the past week, the Yanks have largely been responsible for that, taking the series 2-1 in Boston and thus far going 2-1 in Chicago. It always helps to win the series against the teams with which you are competing for playoff spots. The Yanks are 26-31 but only 5.5 games out of a wild card berth. With Roger Clemens joining the rotation this weekend and the likelihood that some combination of Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon and Robinson Cano regaining their form (they are all way underperforming), the Yanks are in good shape barring further injuries.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:55 AM

 
Getting the boot

The CBC:

"MP Bill Casey was booted out of the Tory caucus hours after he broke ranks with his party on Tuesday night and voted against a bill to implement the federal budget.

The Nova Scotia MP said he couldn't support the budget because it doesn't allow his province to fully benefit from offshore oil and gas revenues without losing equalization payments from the federal government."

I understand that for the government there is no more important vote than the budget (except for the vote which will eventually bring it down) and I appreciate the need for caucus solidarity on some issues, but surely there must be room for a member of Parliament to vote for what he perceives to be the interests of his constituents. They are, after all, the people he represents and who sent him to Ottawa in the first place. I don't know the answer although I lean toward thinking that the best case scenario is voting against the government and getting kicked out of caucus, but I still think this stinks.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:03 AM

 
Taxes are good if they improve health and education

That seems to be the message of the Ontario Tories. At least that's what I got out of Bob Runciman's complaint about Dalton McGuinty's broken no-tax-increase promise in this CTV story on the premier proroguing the legislature three weeks early; in the words of the CTV report: "Conservative House Leader Bob Runciman said the 'record tax increase' the Liberals imposed on voters hasn't improved health care or education in Ontario."
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:56 AM

 
Happy World Environment Day

The UN has designated June 5 'World Environment Day' which, apparently, is not the same thing as the popularly celebrated Earth Day. What would we do without the UN? If you click on the UNEP website, you'll see a few graphics and the words: "Melting Ice -- A Hot Topic?" and underneath "ask" ... "a farmer" and "an islander" and "an indigenous person" and "a polar bear" and ... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Ask a freaking polar bear? How does anyone, anywhere, take the United Nations seriously anymore?
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:52 AM

 
The forest and the trees

An Edmonton Journal article reports that the children of divorced parents are nearly twice as likely to be prescribed Ritalin as children whose parents remain married. The article notes: "The finding may reignite the debate over whether too many children begin their days with a dose of a drug that's meant to calm them down, help them concentrate and control their impulsive behaviours." How about reigniting a debate over whether too many parents are getting divorced?
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:43 AM

 
Should we be outraged about politicians going home early

On The Peter Shurman Show on CFRB a few minutes ago, Ontario PC Leader John Tory was complaining that Premier Dalton McGuinty is adjourning early for the summer, thus killing more than 100 private member's bills and stymieing other important business. At one point Tory said that if the average Joe left work early, he'd be fired and he's advocating that McGuinty be fired for leaving work early. Not quite the same thing, but it's the job of the opposition leader to be outraged by the non-outrageous. Then Tory said that he wouldn't have a problem adjourning early if (and I'm quoting from memory here) "Ontario's emergency rooms were working fine and the crime problem was solved and ..." whatever else Tory is apparently concerned about is left unaddressed. But I have to wonder, will Ontario solve its crime problem or its healthcare problems if its provincial legislature sat an extra two or three weeks? I am not aware of any proposed legislation that would seriously address these issues, so unless Tory is going to draft substantive bills to solve these problems, introduce them in Queen's Park, and work to get them passed, why sit a few more weeks simply so his party can ask the Liberals embarrassing questions about assorted alleged scandals. Tory later admitted as much when he accused McGuinty of closing down the provincial legislature early simply to avoid having to face such questions. So Tory implicitly admitted that he doesn't have solutions to the grave problems that he wants solved before provincial parliament recesses but rather that he wants a few more weeks to play an insignificant game of gotcha with the party is power.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:19 PM

 
Kyoto: environmentalese for bulls**t

The Guardian outlines the problems with the Kyoto Protocol as insufficient to deal with what the scaremongers say is our increasingly hot future. Conservatives have long said that Kyoto is not the end game of the environmentalists.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:17 PM

 
Docs want money for umbilical cord blood bank

CBC has the report. The socon in me likes the ethical alternative to embryonic stem cells. (In fact, unlike ESCs which have never been used successfully in clinical trials*, umbilical cord blood has actually been used to treat several illnesses.) However, the small-government conservative in me says why does the government have to pony up the dough?

* Read anything from Michael Fumento.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:09 PM

 
Ambivalence?

The Toronto Sun reports on the latest SES Research provincial (Ontario) poll that shows the Liberals and Liberal-lites extremely ... er, tied: 29.8%-29.8%. Pollster Nik Nanos says that Ontario is ambivalent. A close race with nearly one in seven voters undecided at this time doesn't necessarily mean voters are ambivalent; there is a difference between indifference (lack of interest or concern) and ambivalence (uncertainty or fluctuation). Maybe instead of being unable to decide between Liberals and Tories, voters don't care -- at least right now.

Another way to look at these particular polling results is the what another pollster found several months ago when delving a little deeper about respondent attitudes: there is no intensity in support or opposition to any of the parties. This seems to support the notion that Ontario voters are indifferent. Anecdotally I have found that even party activists are indifferent -- that is, the strategists, staffers, etc... that I talk to within both parties are not themselves excited about the upcoming campaign. John Tory does not excite many within the party (and actively ticks off a good number of them) and Liberals care little for their leader although they appreciate that he is the leader while they are in power. My guess is if the Liberals won but with only a minority, we can look forward to interim-Liberal leader Greg Sorbara followed by Premier George Smitherman. The Liberals won't be indifferent to their leader once he leads them out of majority government.

But back to that SES poll. I think a more important question is, with a near-majority (46%) thinking the province is on the wrong track and just a third of the respondents thinking it is on the right track, why are the Tory-led Tories only tied with the Liberals.

One reason might be that most voters cannot discern much difference between the two parties. That is, the ambivalence is in the parties, not the voters.

About the specifics of the poll:

It is also interesting to note that more women think the province is on the wrong-track yet the Liberals do better among women respondents than among men.

It is astounding that nearly one-in-four PC respondents think the province is on the right track; it is arguable that we don't need a Progressive Conservative Party in Ontario and it seems that 22.5% of Tory voters might think the same way. Only 34% of Progressive Conservative respondents found McGuinty's performance as premeier poor or very poor.

There are reasons to be dubious of this poll, namely that SES found the Tories leading the Liberals among 18-29s and losing among seniors. (Admittedly, the margin of error is bigger among the age cohorts than within the poll in general and if you take the margin of error into account, the PCs and Liberals might as well be tied among all age groups.)

But the point of this post is not to go into the validity of poll but to question the validity of the analysis of the poll; I just don't think there is enough data to conclude that voters are ambivalent. That's a good guess, but hardly the only explanation.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:07 PM

 
Some weekend reading

Leon Kass examines the post-human world of the near future and points to a way to recapture the humane and human world in which love, literature, art and wonder flourishes in his St. John's College commencement speech last month. (This will appear in the July Interim.)

James C. Capretta reviews three books on healthcare in The New Atlantis that is a fair and quite thoughtful diagnosis of America's healthcare system even if I think he slightly exaggerates the degree to which at least one of the authors plumps for free markets in healthcare.

Three baseball columns by the New York Sun's Tim Marchman. 1) Today's column on the controversy over A-Rod and the mystery blonde and how journalists (and others) deal with this story. 2) Wednesday's column providing a little perspective on the performance of players in the final year of a contract -- some do well, some don't and there are tonnes of reasons other than the pressure of doing well (or incentive to do well) in a walk season. As a whole, players in the final year of a contract do about what you would expect good veterans to be doing at that stage of their careers. 3) Tuesday's excellent column talking only about San Francisco Giants's rookie starter Tim Lincecum's delivery. Masterful journalism and wonderful that a sports writer still has a sense of wonder and awe about what happens on the field.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:02 PM