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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Saturday, May 31, 2008
Must read PTBC post on C-10 Joel Johannesen has a fantastic post at Proud to Be Canadian examining CTV's coverage of C-10 (changes to the Income Tax Act which includes denying tax credits to degrading movies) and Joy MacPhail's interview. For example: "On the Mike Duffy Live liberal hour on liberalvision yesterday, for balance from the far left to counter the views of the liberals and plain leftists, host Duffy invited the former B.C. Minister of Finance, the socialist fundamentalist Joy MacPhail of the horribly but mercifully failed B.C. you’ve got to be kidding party." And: "Speaking of orgies, before MacPhail made her inspired comment we were treated to a discussion about Canadian taxpayer-funded films like a fabulous Canadian film called 'Young People Fu**ing'. (The actual title doesn’t have any of those stupid old-fashioned asterisks. That’s just for us stuffy old neo-con prudes. Vote liberal.) That previous segment was a spirited debate between Dr. Charles McVety, who leads the good Canada Family Action Coalition and is President of Canada Christian College; and the producer of that brilliant piece of Canadian 'art' called 'Young People Fu**ing', which as I understand it from liberals, is a 'Canadian Value'. (I mean as long as they have a taxpayer-funded abortion afterwards)." Screwtape toasts the human rights commissions A fun (but serious) post at Catholic Light (not lite) on the devil's use of HRCs can be read here. Mimicking the style of C.S. Lewis -- actually, stealing the entire concept -- this gem is an insight: "There is no greater way to undermine charity than through the facade of tolerance. Few patients succumb to evil for evil’s sake. More often than not, the temptation comes as a lesser good. Tolerance is among the most effective and versatile of lesser goods. Yes, it requires some patience on the tempter’s part. Tolerance must be introduced to the patient in small doses - enough to cause the patient some discomfort, but not enough to inflame the level of moral outrage that rouses a patient into action. Thus tolerance is best prescribed as a moral painkiller, to suppress the pangs of conscience used by the Enemy to tether the patient to Himself... Tolerance is why your commissions and tribunals have devastated the Enemy’s forces. In the name of tolerance, you have lulled your patients - that is, acclimate them through a series of self-compromises - into intolerance toward the Enemy and His doctrine. What thirty years ago the shaved apes denounced as unthinkable and a perverse inversion of nature is today the law of the land. This is no small victory you have wrestled from the Enemy - especially in the realm of marriage, which as the foundation of the family determines how the next generation is raised. (Or whether there will be a next generation.) Moreover, those who still defend the Enemy’s ways are ostracized from polite society and declared criminals. Yes, a minority still cling to the Enemy’s doctrines. This is where your commissions and tribunals have proven versatile for the lowerarchy - in the name of tolerance no less! The majority who still believe in the Enemy’s will not speak up, less they themselves appear intolerant and unfashionable among their neighbors. (Or should that be neighbours?) You have correctly deduced that the greatest fear to most shaved apes is not the loss of their freedom, but of their temporal comforts. Thus your experiment has silenced their dissent, not through physical violence and torture, but through the fear of inconvenience. This is why you must continue to involve yourself directly in your experiments’ processes. Let them become even greater bastions of inconvenience. Tolerance is also an efficient tool with which to browbeat the few who speak up for the Enemy’s ways. Let those who cling too tenaciously to the Enemy be ostracized and browbeaten into silence. Tolerance is not intended for them, however, physical violence would turn them into martyrs. This in turn would cause others to sympathize with the Enemy. Which brings us to the real genius of your commissions and tribunals: the violence they inflict upon the Enemy’s followers is not physical - but social, political and moral." The chances of Clinton-Obama just doubled to 0.2% In the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Lanny Davis makes the best case for nominating Hillary Clinton to be the Democrats' presidential nominee (that she is doing better in larger batteground states) but it remains unpersuasive for this reason: Clinton is doing better against John McCain than Barack Obama today, but (to state the obvious) the election is five months from now. The polls will shift when 1) the Democratic campaign ends, 2) the real campaign begins, and 3) the Democrats unite around their candidate. Davis concludes by teasing voters and delegates with something that I seriously doubt will ever happen: "Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are progressive, pro-civil rights, pro-affirmative action, pro-choice Democrats. Neither Obama supporters nor Clinton supporters who care about the issues, the Supreme Court, and the need to begin withdrawing from Iraq can truly mean they will actively or passively help Sen. McCain get elected. Threats of walkouts or stay-at-homes by good Democrats are not the answer, nor should they be a factor in superdelegate decisions. But there is one possible scenario that avoids disappointment and frustration by passionate supporters of both candidates, that combines the strengths of one with the strengths of the other, and that virtually guarantees the election of a Democratic president in 2008: A Clinton-Obama or an Obama-Clinton ticket. Stay tuned." This is extremely unlikely, but it shows the desperation of the Clinton camp that they are actively pushing the idea that Obama and Clinton will share the ticket. Mankiw on McCain's tax proposals Greg Mankiw, who was once chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisors, likes some of McCain's ideas for taxation (cutting corporate taxes) and not others (a gas tax holiday). Mankiw notes: "Cutting corporate taxes is not the kind of idea that normally pops up in presidential campaigns. After all, voters aren’t corporations. Why promise goodies for those who can’t put you in office?" McCain wins some points for doing the right thing even if it is not the politically popular thing. But it should be politically popular if politicians like McCain made the case against (high) corporate taxes like this: "In fact, a corporate rate cut would help a lot of voters, though they might not know it. The most basic lesson about corporate taxes is this: A corporation is not really a taxpayer at all. It is more like a tax collector. The ultimate payers of the corporate tax are those individuals who have some stake in the company on which the tax is levied. If you own corporate equities, if you work for a corporation or if you buy goods and services from a corporation, you pay part of the corporate income tax. The corporate tax leads to lower returns on capital, lower wages or higher prices — and, most likely, a combination of all three." Corporations don't pay taxes, people do. And people are workers, investors and consumers; in other words, almost every voter. 100 best guitar songs of all time Rolling Stone initiates a thousand debates with its list. I know everyone puts Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze (#2) before his Voodoo Child (Slight Return) which falls ten places behind, but that is simply status quo bias tipping its hat to numerous previous lists. And Stairway to Heaven (#8) before Whole Lotta Love (#11)? Black Sabbath's Paranoid, which is not even on the list, is a much better guitar song than Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath (#17). And I'm dubious of any list that has Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine so high (#24) or Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits so low (#32); Sultans is easily a top five song, especially when performed live. But this list loses all credibility when John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' Hideaway is a measly #42, Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train lands at only #51, and Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird just cracks 65. And it is an atrocity that anything by Stevie Ray Vaughan doesn't crack the top half. I'd also have Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll (#89) and The Smiths' How Soon is Now (#90) much higher on the list of best guitar songs. Friday, May 30, 2008
Morgengrinder the humanitarian LifeSiteNews.com reports: "The Canadian Labour Congress granted its highest honour, the Award for Outstanding Service to Humanity, to Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the father of Canada’s abortion movement. The CLC granted the award to Dr. Morgentaler at the CLC's 25th Constitutional Convention in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon. Delegates applauded loudly, with many moved to tears. Dr. Morgentaler thanked the CLC for standing with him 'through his many years of struggle.' Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said that in light of the CLC’s focus on the “wage gap” between men and women, 'It is more than fitting that as we celebrate Dr. Morgentaler's historic legal victory for women in the Supreme Court of Canada 20 years ago - we honour his amazing contribution to the advancement of human rights, women's equality, and progressive change'." Two things. The CLC which honoured Morgentaler should not be confused with the CLC which is the lobbying arm of the pro-life movement. And giving a so-called medical doctor a humanitarian award when what he does is destroy tiny, vulnerable human beings is an abuse of language. Political humour  Beltway Bloopers: Hilarious Quotes and Anecdotes from Washington, D.C. , edited by Don Reid and published by Barnes and Noble. I was a contributing researcher. I'll write a bit about it -- the book's content and the process by which it came together (or at least my part in it) -- on the weekend. You can buy the book here. What I'm reading 1. The Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making by David Rothkopf. A serious book that will be hijacked by the conspiratorialist who will exaggerate what Rothkopf says and rather than notice his thesis that there are 2000 global, business, NGO and academic leaders that have a disproportionate influence on world events, they will say that this global elite control world events. One question for them: why would Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expose this cabal of which he is surely part -- the Carnegie Endowment is part of the global elite, isn't it? 2. "Dollar a Day Revisited," a World Bank Development Research Group policy research Working paper by Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen and Prem Sangraula. Ravallion is the person who came up with the dollar a day (actually US$1.10 in 1990 purchasing power) as the measure of extreme poverty in the world. The Economist has a fine story ("On the poverty line") on changing the standard (which the magazine comes against doing), while the paper appears to only slightly tweak the standard. 3. "The 2008 Presidential Election: What Will It Mean for the Pro-Life Cause?" by Maggie Datiles, staff counsel for Americans United for Life. I will almost certainly write about this in the July issue of The Interim. 4. "Help Set 'The Copenhagen Consensus!': Vote now to tell policymakers what global problems should be tacked first," by Bjorn Lomborg at reason.com. The Copenhagen Consensus examines world problems using cost-benefit analysis to determine how issues and solutions should be prioritized. 5. "Female Socialization: How Daughters Affect Their Legislator Fathers’ Voting on Women’s Issues," by Ebonya Washington. Thursday, May 29, 2008
Prime Minister McCain George F. Will has a great column condemning John McCain's idiotic idea of occasionally going to the House of Representatives and Senate to answer questions from those two institutions' members. Will says that it demeans Congress by appearing to subordinate it to the presidency and reducing it to the status of prop because while McCain would ostensibly answering the questions from Congressmen and senators he would be doing so as a way of communicating with the American public. Over at NRO's Bench Memos, Matthew J. Franck disagrees with McCain's proposal but also disagrees with Will's specific critique. The important point is that McCain's idea is a bad one. It violates the separation of powers (Will's point), reduces the office of the presidency (Will and Franck) and is unworkable because the U.S. system is not like the U.K. system (Franck). But it is a colossally bad idea because it would not achieve anything. Such questioning would provide an opportunity for both sides -- the president and members of Congress -- to perform for the public without adding to the stock of substantive policy discussion. In short, it reduces politics to theatre. John McCain should be ashamed of proposing such a gimmick and anyone falling for it should be doubly ashamed. Rare rhino seen The AFP reports on the rare Javan rhinoceros, an animal that is rarely seen: "Hidden cameras in the jungles of Indonesia's Java island have captured rare footage of the world's most threatened rhino, boosting efforts to save it from extinction, conservationists said Thursday ... The footage will help conservationists fighting to save the species, which numbers only around 60 in the wild, by giving new information on the rhinos' health as well as vital insights into their breeding habits..." If the animal is hardly ever seen, how can they know how many there are? This reminds me of a quip I heard in university when it was mentioned that a certain species of tiger was 'rare', to which an acquaintence said it would be better if the tiger was medium-rare. His girlfriend broke up with over the remark. The sub-head alone is worth price of the subscription From Touchstone: "The Skeptical Inquirer: If Only Atheists Were the Skeptics They Think They Are," by Edward Tingley of Ottawa's Augustine College. It's a very good article that points to the problems and hypocrisies of atheists. For a flavour: "He likes a world in which he can feign disability—“I wish I could believe in a god of some kind but I simply cannot”—and then be left alone at every such sad-faced confession of impotence. But it is not true that he cannot believe. What he cannot do is believe in God in the posture that he has adopted, since he demands to believe on the basis of the specific kind of evidence he is not getting. (Perfect!—the one way never to believe.) He demands that God show himself to senses or logic, and when God does not oblige, he considers the matter closed and ceases to think." Best (even if typical) comment on Scott McClellan Daniel Casse in Contentions: "Is there a single person–Republican, Democrat, Independent–who thinks that Scott McClellan was an able or skilled White House spokesman? Is there any member of the press who thought he was good at his job? What makes the notion of his tell-all book so ludicrous is that McClellan is surely the most incompetent and least trustworthy White House press flack since Ron Ziegler. His stonewall visage and his smarmy, resentful, and unmemorable responses seemed to exude evasion and incomplete information. Based on the snippets from Drudge and Politico, the book seems to be filled to the brim with the most hackneyed, pseudo-pious notions about how the administration was not 'open and forthright,' or how he had been 'at best misled' by his West Wing bosses or how the White House was 'in a state of denial.' At one point, accusing Rove and Libby of secretly coordinating their statements during the Plame investigation, he mentions, in passing, that he reached this conclusion because he saw them talking, but never heard what they talked about. McClellan apparently spends a lot of time complaining that he didn’t know what was going on, or was lied to by others–and yet he has the temerity to call his (probably ghostwritten) book What Happened. Larry Speakes wrote a book, too, I guess. This deserves the same place in history." What an idiot Guardian columnist and left-wing activist (but I repeat myself) George Monbiot tried to make a citizen's arrest of John Bolton at a Wales literary festival. The Telegraph explains: "A citizen's arrest can be carried out under certain circumstances by a member of the public, if they believe a person had carried out a crime, under the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act 2005." Under what British law has John Bolton 'carried out a crime'? One may dislike his role in advocating for the war in Iraq, but not even in Britain is that a crime. Wednesday, May 28, 2008
U.S. health care needs market mechanisms From Jim's Blog (HT: Bryan Caplan) conversations between health care providers (hospitals) and Jim about the price of a colonoscopy (by the way, in Singapore health care prices are advertised!): Conversation with Stanford Hospital Me: My wife needs a colonoscopy: Could you give me a price on it? Stanford Hospital (businesslike tone): Twenty five hundred to thirty five hundred. Me: You do this all the time. Can’t you give me a specific price? Stanford Hospital (cooler tone): Sorry Me: Is $3500 the all up, all included price to both myself and my insurance? Stanford Hospital (businesslike tone): It only includes the doctors fee, and does not include any additional services. Me: So after I have this done, any number of people could then charge me any fee they like in addition to the thirty five hundred? Stanford Hospital (distinctly chilly tone): I am afraid so. O’Connor Hospital Me: My wife needs a colonoscopy: Could you give me a price on it. O’Connor Hospital: Do you have a primary physician? Me: Yes, my primary physician has advised this procedure, but it seems expensive. I am looking for a price. O’Connor Hospital (outraged and indignant): We don’t give out prices! Mercy General Hospital Me: I am looking for a price on a colonoscopy. Mercy General Hospital hangs up without a word. Saint Joseph’s medical center of Stockton I am transferred to financial counselling, who transferred me to “Estimates” The estimating lady appreciated my problem and made sympathetic noises. She then asks me for a CPT code. I then research what CPT codes are, and discover that an operation can result in any CPT, and any number of CPTs. I discover that no matter what CPT I give, it is unlikely to be correct or sufficient, that additional CPTs can show up any time. A CPT would only be useful if it was possible to know in advance what CPTs would result from a colonoscopy, but the CPTs are only decided after the colonoscopy, usually long after the colonoscopy. I bet it won't be that big CTV reports that there will a big cabinet shuffle in Ottawa in the next few weeks. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Industry Minister Jim Prentice will probably switch jobs and three current ministers are likely to be dropped from the cabinet completely (Secretary of State Helena Guergis and Treasury Board President Vic Toews), three new faces are likely to be added (MPs James Moore, Gerald Keddy, and Rod Bruinooge). David Emerson will be given the full title to Foreign Affairs and Health Minister Tony Clement moves to take Emerson's trade portfolio -- if it isn't Clement, it could be Immigration Minister Diane Finley. If Clement moves, that will necessitate further changes. I think there will be tweaking, but I doubt that the kind of overhaul CTV is reporting are in the works -- that would be seen as an admission of comprehensive failure(s) by Stephen Harper and he is not going to do that. Here's one prediction: if Clement moves from Health, either Prentice or Diane Ablonczy, currently the Secretary of State (Small Business & Tourism), will take his place. Flaherty stays in place. Sowell's musings Thomas Sowell's regular observations and quips collected into a single column has these gems: "At one time, to call someone "green" was to disparage them as inexperienced or immature. Today, calling someone green exalts them as one of the environmentalist saviors of the planet. But it is amazing how many people are green in both senses." And: "Whoever said that overnight is a lifetime in politics knew what he was talking about. Just six months ago, the big question was how Hillary and Rudolph Giuliani would do against each other in this year's presidential elections." And finally a general observation about people that is especially applicable to the Democratic contestants Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: "One way in which people are similar is in the lengths to which they will go to show that they are different." Washington Times ... Endorses South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint (R) for veep. DeMint is a principled conservative -- so much so he actually opposed the flawed farm bill -- who wins marks for honesty and courage. Patrick Buchanan, rest in pieces Patrick Buchanan is the author of the just-released Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World. Can we stop taking him seriously? One question about this survey Ann Douglas applauds a survey finding that about three quarters Canadians would like to see the speed limit dropped from 50 km/h to 30 km/h around where children play. Douglas writes*: "Would Canadians actually be willing to slow down in residential areas, if doing so would help save children's lives? Yes, according to this survey. The researchers found that 74 per cent of drivers would support a law making 30 km/h the mandatory law in residential areas if they knew it could have a positive impact on child safety." So what is stopping drivers from slowing down? The respondents probably favour the reduction for the one in seven drivers who admit that they exceed residential speed limits, but one wonders why the vast majority who think lower speed limits would save lives are not themselves slowing down. * A lot of the Douglas 'article' is barely re-written copy from the Safe Kids Canada press release. Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Back away from the fedora Lore Sjöberg writes in Wired: "I'm jazzed to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but my anticipation is dimmed somewhat by the inevitable ensuing upturn in fedora sales. When I go to San Diego Comic-Con this July, I fully expect to see fedoras popping up like mushrooms on the damp lawn of fandom. It's not the cosplayers that I'm concerned with -- at least they're aware they're playing dress up. It's the folks who say, 'Wow, that hat looks so good on Indy, I'm sure it will look just as good with my pre-faded ColecoVision T-shirt.' I hear the Motion Picture Association of America is now rating movies higher on the adultitude scale if they feature smoking, on the grounds that onscreen cigarette puffing influences people to take up the habit themselves. While I think movie fedoras have the same effect, I'm not calling for anything that drastic. I think a disclaimer in 5-foot-tall letters at the beginning of the movie would be fine. Something like: 'WARNING: Indiana Jones is a fictional character. His movies are all set decades ago. He is more physically attractive than 98 percent of humanity. These are all reasons you should not attempt to dress like him'." Get it fast and blow it all out of proportion Over at The Politico, John F. Harris has a column on how the media makes mountains out of mole hills that is the single best analysis of the media I've seen in a long time. Harris says: "The way to build traffic on the Web is to get links from other websites. The way to get links is to be first with news — sometimes big news, sometimes small — that drives that day’s conversation." That's true whether you are a newish internet site like The Politico or an established paper like the New York Times. Serious journalism (substance) takes a hit, but the ratings are great -- or at least the editors hope. Harris talks about the hoopla and misrepresentation of Hillary Clinton's Robert Kennedy assassination comments. Clinton should have known what she said would be the source of controversy but it was still blown out of proportion. What is notable is that what is often thought to be the trade of sensationalistic websites is providing the lead of the major newspapers: "But it was striking to see the broadcast networks and big papers, which were still going at full boil that evening and the next morning even though they had plenty of time to assess the (dwindling) significance of the story as the day wore on. (Meanwhile Friday, Obama was giving a major foreign-policy speech in Miami to unveil his plan for Latin America.) In an earlier era, these establishment outlets prized their role in promoting and preserving high standards of relevance." Read the whole thing -- longer than a typical column, but worth reading. To liberals blacks are great props Thomas Sowell has a great column on 'mascot politics' about blacks as token symbols for white liberals: "At no time in all these years did I hear Milton Friedman say, either publicly or privately, that he had a black secretary. William F. Buckley’s wife once mentioned in passing, at dinner in her home, that she had been involved for years in working with a school in Harlem. But I never heard her or Bill Buckley ever say that publicly. Nor do conservatives who were in the civil-rights marches in the south, back when that was dangerous, make that a big deal. For people on the Left, however, blacks are trophies or mascots, and must therefore be put on display. Nowhere is that more true than in politics. The problem with being a mascot is that you are a symbol of someone else’s significance or virtue. The actual well-being of a mascot is not the point." Monday, May 26, 2008
The most important day for Canadian journalism Is just one week away. My June editor's column explains why the B.C. Human Rights Commission complaint is so important. It is not yet available online, so I'm posting it here. Reining in the human rights commission industry The Editor's Desk Paul Tuns June 2008 The Interim In recent months, the media have finally begun covering the goings-on of human rights commissions, thanks to separate complaints by different Muslims against Ezra Levant (the former publisher of The Western Standard), Maclean’s magazine and now the Halifax Chronicle-Herald newspaper. It took a complaint against one of their own tribe for journalists to finally wake up to the danger that this country’s federal and provincial human rights commissions present to our essential liberties. I won’t go into the details of these cases or the problems with how human rights commissions operate -- see our February cover story for that information. What I’d rather do now is explain why this battle must be won and why human rights commissions must be, at the very least, reformed. This month in British Columbia, Maclean’s magazine is defending itself before that province’s human rights tribunal for publishing an excerpt of Mark Steyn’s best-selling book, America Alone. The book and the article warned that there is a clash of civilizations (between the Muslim world and the West) which Europe and Canada could very well lose, in part because of our lousy demographic trajectory, in part due to our lack of unifying cultural values. Steyn quoted European imams and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi saying things to the effect that Europe will one day be Muslim. One may or may not agree with Steyn. One might accuse him of being overly selective in his quotes and sensationally provocative in the presentation of his alarming thesis. One might even find it irresponsible of Maclean’s to republish a portion of his book. But what right does that give the critics to use the state – for that is what human rights commissions are – to tell a private magazine what it may or may not publish. The complainants want an article of equal length to run in Maclean’s unedited, rebutting Steyn’s argument. No publication would concede to this and no publication should be made to do so. This is not just a freedom of the press issue, although that is vitally important in a free and just society. Rather, it is a private property issue: does a magazine or newspaper have the right to run its publication in the manner it sees fit? (The same could be said of, say, a Knights of Columbus hall that refuses to rent its facilities to a lesbian couple or a printer who wants the right to refuse clients because he disagrees with the message of the work he would do or a political party and the messages it chooses to present on its website.) Although technically, the complaint against Maclean’s is not against the author (Steyn), but the magazine and its editor/publisher Kenneth Whyte (who has shown admirable resolve in the face of this bullying), Mark Steyn has been the public face and effective spokesman of the defendant in this case. He recently wrote that the magazine will probably lose the case, after which the it will probably be required to run an opposing viewpoint and restricted in the future about what it can say about fanatical Islam and jihad. Steyn and Whyte say this is outrageous and it is. If human rights commissions decide they can require a particular magazine to publish a particular story, they can decide that any magazine can be susceptible to similar treatment. While the complainant against Catholic Insight is not asking for rebuttal privileges, there is nothing to stop some future gay activist from doing so. And why stop at gay rights activists? Why not require Catholic Insight to print articles by atheists espousing godlessness? Why stop at Catholic Insight? The Interim might be required to print commentary by abortionist Henry Morgentaler. But why stop there? The Toronto Star should be made to run columns by businessmen promoting capitalism, by polluters to trash Greenpeace and gang leaders to defend violence in schools. Isn’t that silly? Yes, it is. But once the principle that human rights commissions can interfere with editorial judgments of newspapers and magazines in some circumstances, why not permit it in all circumstances when an aggrieved group is offended by the material a publication produces? The answer is simple: some groups are privileged to have the human rights commissions do their bidding and others are not. But that makes them even worse because it puts the HRCs in the position of promoting some causes and views over others, creating a class of permissible, even near-official views, and a class of impermissible and possibly punishable views. As Ron Gray, leader of the Christian Heritage Party and the target of a federal human rights commission complaint, has said, this is the road to tyranny. And speaking of tyranny, there is also the issue of human rights commissions operating as official censors, taking certain topics off the table. We have already seen this when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. In recent years, Hugh Owens and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix were punished for running an amateurish advertisement against the sins of homosexual behaviour, while Stephen Boissoin and the Red Deer Advocate were castigated for discussing the homosexual lifestyle – the paper promised to never run another letter to the editor critical of homosexuality and no paper in Alberta can run Boissoin’s letters on the topic. This censorship goes way beyond the original mandate of human rights commissions to address housing and employment discrimination. They have become Orwellian thought police, punishing those who deviate from politically correct norms. As Steyn and fellow Maclean’s columnist Andrew Coyne have both said, it is easy to turn a blind eye to the abuses of human rights complaints when it involves some “kook” neo-Nazi or a poor, solitary opponent of the gay agenda. But it’s becoming more difficult to turn away when the rights of “mainstream” journalists and editors are threatened. That is why people like Ezra Levant and myself are hopeful something can be done to rein in the whole corrupt human rights commission industry. Now that the media is taking notice, the public will realize that these commissions are not benign entities stamping out legitimate hatred, but a clear and present danger to our liberties. Change is at hand. Be patient, but be diligent. And continue to press your MPs on the issue to ensure they stand up for the freedom of Canadians. Libertarians are amusing Because they are a little weird. Consider David Weigel's three dispatches from the Libertarian convention in Denver -- one, two, three -- and he is sympathetic. The party's purity caucus reminds me of the PR-oblivious, heads-in-the-sand variety of social conservatives who simply do not care that the rest of society has no time for them because, darn-golly, they're right and that's all that matters. What I'm reading 1. Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. A typically Sowellian examination of various (pet) issues with his usual cut-through-the-BS facts and logic -- some neat facts such as this one: Houston, despite higher growth in both population and wealth than the national average, has successfully held down housing prices in recent decades due to the absence of zoning laws. 2. "The Fall of Conservatism: Have the Republicans run out of ideas?" by George Packer in the May 26 New Yorker. Everyone is reading it even though it appears to be intellectually lazy or dishonest, conflating conservatives with Republicans, and missing the point that policy debates are a sign of vigour not weakness. 3. "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business," by Chris Anderson in the February 25 Wired. Anderson is consistently interesting, if not always convincing. 4. "Brazil Rainforest Analysis Sets Off Political Debate," by Alexei Barrionuevo in the May 25 New York Times. A federal bureaucrat has said that deforestation is growing while a Brasilian businessman wants to contribute to the country's phenomenal economic growth of recent years -- growth that is, in part, dependent on cutting down the rainforest. 5. "The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics," a Cato Institute briefing paper by Johan Norberg that demolishes Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, an anti-capitalism screed that (I would say intentionally) misrepresents the ideas of Milton Friedman. In praise of the peanut butter sandwich Donna Jacobs in the Ottawa Citizen: "Behold the peanut butter sandwich. On whole-grain bread, this portable fast-food marvel is a complete source of all 20 protein-building amino acids found in meat, fish, eggs and cheese. The 'PBS' is the modern take on the ancient cultural discovery that has saved mankind over millennia: Mix a grain (wheat, corn, rice, oats and barley) with a legume (beans, peas, peanuts, soybeans) and you get a complete set of amino acids." And it can save lives, as it has in parts of starving Africa. Jacobs explains the effort to get Plumpy'nut to malnourished children. As one report explains, "they have been revolutionizing emergency care .... by taking care out of crowded field hospitals and straight into mother's homes," curing 89% of malnourished children compared to traditional recovery rates of one-quarter to four-tenths. A four-week supply is $20 and does not require the use of (often dirty) water for mix as traditional treatments do. It's a great success story and the article rewards the time it takes to read. Middlebrow The concept is explored by Publius at Gods of the Copybook Headings and is worth grabbing a coffee and reading. Sunday, May 25, 2008
A sign of recession? From the U.S. Department of Transportation: Americans drove "11 billion miles less in March 2008 than in the previous March ... the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA [Federal Highway Administration] history." Calculated Risk says that the year-over-year decline in vehicle miles traveled might be an indicator of a major recession; both previous YoY declines (1973 and 1979) were linked to increasing oil prices and were followed by the two largest recessions since World War II. (HT: Marginal Revolution) And the first knife in Brown's back comes from ... David Miliband. The Times (London) reports: "David Miliband is preparing to throw his hat into the ring in a leadership contest to “save new Labour” after the party’s disastrous defeat in last week’s Crewe & Nantwich by-election. The foreign secretary has confided to friends that he is prepared to stand for the leadership if a critical mass of backbenchers turn against Gordon Brown. He is discussing a strategy to position himself for the top job without personally engineering the prime minister’s downfall. It comes as senior Labour insiders claim that at least half the cabinet have privately concluded that Brown cannot win the next general election." Once cabinet ministers are openly musing about a premature leadership test for a sitting prime minister, you know the PM is toast. Crime in London, Or, letting the inmates run the asylum Two stories from the Telegraph, the first about the latest teenage victim of knife crime: "Robert Knox, 18, who acted alongside Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, became the 28th teenager killed in Britain this year, and the 10th in London to die from stab wounds." We are not even halfway through 2008 and already there have been nearly 30 teens killed and 10 stabbing deaths. Sounds serious and it demands a response. Oh, yes, the Home Office and new mayor Boris Johnson have already proposed counter-measures to the increased violence, including giving making it easier for police to search youths suspected of having knives on them and using knife scanners in schools, clubs and other places frequented by adolescents. But wait: the children's commissioner has problems with the proposals, namely that it might antagonize some youth. Sir Al Aynsley-Green has said: "There is a balance here. On the one hand for young people to feel safer by having the presence of the police - but on the other hand making sure the new powers don't create further antagonism by increased stopping and searching." Aynsley-Green has called for more 'research' although the pertinent data -- 28 teenagers dying in just under six months, 10 stabbing deaths -- might be all that are need to convince many Londoners, including parents, of the wisdom of the clamp down, which is already under way in some high crime areas. Boris Johnson was elected, in part, because the liberal elite refused to take street safety seriously. There's a new sheriff in town and BoJo is cleaning up. The fear of ticking off some already problematic adolescents should be of little concern to a policy that protects safety ahead of hurt feelings. Saturday, May 24, 2008
Where do we draw the line A scene from multicultural Toronto from the pages of the Toronto Star: "It took a minute for the news to sink in. Then she called her husband of 14 years, demanding to know if what she had just been told was true – that while she spent a year in Egypt raising their four children in a more Islamic environment, he had used it as an opportunity to marry not just one, but two other women in Toronto. 'Yes, I'm married,' he said, quashing all her dreams of their future together. He told her he was married in a small ceremony 20 days earlier, officiated by Aly Hindy, a well-known Toronto imam, at his Scarborough mosque. 'I cried for six days straight. Lost my appetite, ignored the kids, even had to start taking antidepressants,' said [Safa] Rigby, 35. 'What I couldn't understand was how such a thing could happen in Toronto, my hometown, where polygamy is supposed to be illegal.' It was easy. He simply found an imam willing to break a Canadian law, in exchange for upholding an Islamic one. 'Polygamy is happening in Toronto; it's not common, but it's happening,' said Hindy, imam at Salahuddin Islamic Centre." How does a country that officially promotes multiculturalism prevent polygamy? Prevent imams from willingly breaking the law? Can it? 1001 books In the New York Times, William Grimes tears apart Peter Boxall's atrocious 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Grimes criticizes the very concept of the exercise but also the content and difficulty of following Boxall's advice. As Grimes notes, a fairly well read individual (such as himself) who has read about a third of the books on the list would take 55 years to read the rest of them if he or she read one book a month (to note overly disrupt one's existing reading plan). Two facts illustrate the folly of Boxall's list: Half the books were published after World War II and among those are Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire, Philip Roth's tedious The Breast, and seven Don DeLillo novels (which happens when with a list with 500 books published after the mid-1940s). Part of the problem is the bias for post-modern authors exhibited by the editors and academics Boxall consulted, but the other is the sheer number (1001!). A list of 100 or even 200 would be both realistically attainable and an enumeration of truly great books. At the same time, the 1001 list means lots of arguments about the inclusion of this or that (over one that was omitted), but as Grimes points out, part of the exercise is also to show off ('look at what I read'). I looked at 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, because like the Brits Grimes complains about, I'm a sucker for literary lists. I read a few entries thoroughly, glanced through the list, and put it down. I don't recall Boxall's criteria, so I can't complain about the inclusion of Mario Puzo's The Godfather (a case could be made that a culturally literate individual in 2006 should have read the novel). Anyway, from what I recall about the book, the Grimes essay is much more thought-provoking and interesting. Bush's pro-free trade talk Yesterday President George Bush made a necessary and politically brave speech defending free trade with Colombia. It was fine as far as it went and I understand that the president has to make the domestic case for free trade and that in the context of Colombia, most imports are already duty-free. But I get a little frustrated when the primary argument being offered in favour of free trade is that it creates jobs in America by opening up foreign markets. The purpose of free markets is not to expand employment or even to allow businesses to make profits, but to provide products and services at competitive prices for consumers. A U.S.-Colombia FTA would would expand consumer choice and improve living standards in both countries most importantly by making it easier for poorer Colombians to access and afford more American products. To take one of President George Bush's examples, if an American-made tractor costs $15,500 less, a farmer might be able to increase his productivity. Or to take another, if the tariffs on foreign fruits and vegetables are cut in Colombia, the people of that country will pay less for oranges and broccoli. That should improve nutrition. There's a lot more to free trade than promoting manufacturing jobs in the Midwest; it is about improving the living conditions of people around the world. It is shameful that Democrats are standing in the way of this and that Bush could not defend that more vigorously. And the case is even stronger for American politicians to open up the U.S. market to foreign products because there are many more consumers than there are factory workers or farmers. Steven Spielberg as a red-baiting, Cold War warrior? From the AP: "Members of Russia's Communist party are calling for a boycott of the new Indiana Jones movie, saying it aims to undermine communist ideology and distort history. Moscow Communist legislator Andrei Andreyev said Saturday, 'It is very disturbing if talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War'." I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Wednesday at midnight with my two sons. It was fun (unrealistic and silly in parts, but Indiana Jones-fun) but I can't imagine that it will spur a new Cold War. Friday, May 23, 2008
I don't buy this at all New York magazine says New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is being eyed by both Barack Obama and John McCain as a possible running mate. Whatever positives -- his wealth, bipartisanship and his religion -- there are enormous downsides. As the article's author John Heilemann says: "For both Obama and McCain, to be sure, there are obvious downsides to pairing up with Bloomberg. A pro-choice, pro-gun-control running mate would only exacerbate the suspicions about McCain on the true-believing right. And the Democratic base would hardly jump for joy at the sight of a plutocratic former Republican (however much of a charade that affiliation always was) hand-in-hand with Obama onstage at the convention in Denver." I think there Bloomberg's problems are much bigger than that. I'm not sure that America is ready for a ticket with a black man and Jew. I'm not sure America is ready for a bachelor in a position of being next-in-line for the presidency (see Bob Kerrey in 1992). I think Bloomberg is too liberal not just for the Republicans but for the Democrats because he is too closely associated with several nanny-state, culturally liberal issues and causes for a Democratic party aching to reach out to independent voters. I think Bloomberg is too effeminate. But most importantly -- and not just for Democrats -- is the billionaire thing; many American voters would be uneasy about his enormous wealth. A lesser problem would be the rest of America's love/hate relationship with New York City, which could taint his candidacy. This is the type of story that a magazine that covers New York City runs and it is harmless and kind of fun. But it also shows the gaping chasm between the Big Apple and the rest of America that it could not conceive of the serious downside of Bloomberg. There's nothing new under the sun Barack Obama claims to be part of the New Politics which doesn't demonize opponents. Jennifer Rubin at Contentions says not so fast: "Barack Obama represents New Politics. But really, it is one small bit of a larger picture. Obama is against villifying opponents? But he accuses McCain of not wanting to be generous to veterans. Obama doesn’t like 'cut and paste' politics and playing gotcha with out of context phrases? But he perpetuated the 100 years debate for weeks. He swears age shouldn’t be an issue ? Yet the DNC attack dog Howard Dean dwells on it at every turn. And while Obama doffs his cap to McCain’s years of service, a parade of military-bashing surrogates steps forward to ding McCain. At some point even the media will notice the disconnect and begin to question the New Politics mantra, right? Well perhaps the public will figure it out on their own." Some of Rubin's points are more valid than others -- his attacks on McCain are more valid than criticizing Obama for his surrogates' attacks. But at some point Obama needs to distance himself from those surrogates because there is nothing new about having others do dirty work on one's behalf. It is, in fact, a well-worn tactic to allow candidates to wash their hands of the responsibility of certain attacks. Killing by the numbers Andrea Mrozek at ProWomanProLife looks at Canada's abortion numbers in a way that should cause people to squirm a little: "By now you’ve heard the story that the abortion rate in Canada declined in the most recent survey period. Good, and yet, really–not good enough. If we take the Guttmacher Institute’s (research arm of Planned Parenthood, an American group) reasons for why women have an abortion, and we take the number of abortions in Canada, 96,815 for 2004-2005, approximately the following number of people were not born in Canada for the following reasons that year: (please note we have no Canadian equivalent of the Guttmacher stats so this is all very approximate) 20,330 people died for inadequate finances 20,330 people died because the woman isn’t ready 15,490 people died because the woman’s life would change too much 11,618 people died because there are problems in the relationship; the woman is unmarried 10,650 people died because the girl is too young 7,745 people died because the woman has all the children she wants 2,904 people died because the woman has a health problem 2,904 people died because the baby has health problems 968 people died because of rape or incest 3,873 people died for 'other' reasons. (Average number of reasons given, 3.7) I gather this is why we’re not allowed to question 'a woman’s choice': once you begin to question that, you wonder whether these are good reasons for killing people. Everyone, of course, draws their own line in the sand somewhere." Kathy Shaidle's must read post Here. Its about political conservatives ignoring the real issues that affect real people and about which normal people with jobs and families regularly talk about. Read the whole post but here is the meat and potatoes: "Here's the real problem with Establishment/Movement Conservatism: It refuses to address the very issues that working class people bitch about among themselves and that the elites won't even acknowledge: * racial/cultural divides and differences, such as taxpayer sponsored serial unwed motherhood that's become an institution among blacks, hispanics and lower class whites * illegal and legal immigration, its effect on everyday life ('press one for English') and the resentments these effects engender among immigrants vs citizens * tort reform (because most politicians are lawyers, we'll never see that happen) * the sense of entitlement that seems to be the one thing all Americans have in common anymore, from the 'right' to hog the sidewalks with their goddamn giant baby strollers to the 'right' to blast their goddamn rap music out of their ugly cars while talking to their stupid friends on their stupid cellphone. Jezuz." One thing about the issue of immigration: literally everywhere I've gone in the last month from socials hosted by think tanks to my grandmother's 80th birthday party, the issue of immigration has featured prominently in conversation. But seldom is the issue covered in the media and when it is, it never reflects the discussion that regular folks are having about it. I do not think there is an issue in which the gap in popular and elite opinion is as large as it is on immigration and the political party that can tap into this anxiety will probably be able to translate it into major votes. And another thing: while regular people are concerned about the environment, they generally don't talk about it and they are certainly not willing to pay much or inconvenience themselves to protect the planet from their own consumption. Veep musings Politico looks at what many consider three of the front-runners for the job as Senator John McCain's running mate: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. A few quick thoughts. 1) There is so little happening on the GOP side, that political reporters and pundits are reduced to making stuff up. This might be dressed up as analysis, but this is really fiction. Such lists become 'facts' because they are repeatedly mentioned by pundits -- something newsy and true because jouranlist say it is. And pundits musing about potential vice presidential candidates are less real analysis based on the presidential candidate's criteria than the analytical basis by which journalists think about such things: McCain needs Florida so Crist helps; McCain needs youth/colour/a real conservative on the ticket so Jindal fills three needs in one shot; Romney is appreciated by conservatives and he might heal the rift with the grassroots that McCain's maverick reputation has led to. The problem is no one knows whether John McCain is using this criteria. 2) Jindal would be a great choice for substantive, symbolic and superficial reasons. But he can do more good by continuing to make policy reforms in Louisiana; if McCain is elected, Jindal can always be named to head some federal department. I'd rather see Jindal make a real difference where he can than risk (at this point in time) a shot at a nominally important job. 3) I'd wager real dough that none of these three are the vice presidential candidate. Seldom are the early, obvious choices the actual choice. In 1988 no one was talking about Dan Quayle (except George F. Will) three months before the convention; I don't recall Al Gore being on many people's lists for Bill Clinton in 1992 or Joseph Lieberman or Dick Cheney being played up by the pundits in the Spring of 2000. There is so much more involved in the decision than that which is allowed for by the superficial analysis of pundits (geography, age, ideology balance or reinforcement). Thursday, May 22, 2008
A headline not from The Onion... But from the Daily Telegraph: "Man admits having sex with 1,000 cars." Edward Smith, a 57-year-old American man who is not sexually interested in men or women, has had sex with automobiles since he was 15. (How does he get their consent?) Some of the cars he shagged belonged to strangers or were in showrooms. Smith explains: "There have been certain cars that attracted me and I would wait until night time, creep up to them and just hug and kiss them." He once dated a woman but could not 'consummate' the relationship. As he says, "Cars are just my preference." The paper reports, "He says that his most intense sexual experience was 'making love' to the helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf." According to the story, there are 500 such enthusiasts, a British documentary on the phenomenon and there was a mechaphilia rally in California. Five years ago, I would have found this outrageous. Sadly, now I shrug and smirk. And, as I have noted before, I feel sorry for those trying to write satire in 2008: it is difficult to one-up reality nowadays. It's not easy being green From Wired a reconsideration of several green ideas: Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What it Means to Be Green 1: Live in Cities 2: A/C Is OK 3: Organics Are Not The Answer 4: Farm the Forests 5: China Is the Solution 6: Accept Genetic Engineering 7: Carbon Trading Doesn't Work 8: Embrace Nuclear Power 9: Used Cars — Not Hybrids 10: Prepare for the Worst There are brief stories on each of these that are worth reading -- click on the links down the center of the story. Free trade in clothes hangers From NPR a few weeks back: "Wire hangers are getting more expensive due to import tariffs on cheaper hangers from China." C'mon. Restricting the trade of wire hangers? Doesn't Washington have better things to do? Or not do? Such protectionism has real-life costs: "Since the tariff was imposed, nearly every dry cleaner in the U.S. has had to pay more for hangers, on average about $4,000 a year. But Magnus says most customers probably won't notice it." Those costs are getting passed onto consumers. All to protect the one -- one! -- Alabama-based company that produces wire hangers in the United States. Has it helped? Consider these staggering numbers: "Last year, the United States imported 2.7 billion wire hangers from China — up 52 percent from 2006." With just a little more than five months to go... Over at the Weekly Standard blog: "Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll offers some good news today, showing John McCain with a 4 point lead over Barack Obama." Getting excited about a four point lead on May 22? But Dean Barnett redeems himself: "Dick Morris foresees a “GOP senate massacre” this year, one that will possibly be 'even greater than the worst of previous GOP years: 1958, 1964, 1974, 1986 and 2006.' As you know, I too have foreseen serious troubles for the Republican party this cycle. But if there’s one thing I know about politics, it’s that Dick Morris is always wrong. So perhaps his essay offers a glimmer of hope." Wednesday, May 21, 2008
22 million meaningless dollars Jennifer Rubin at Contentions, Commentary's blog: "Last night, there were lots of numbers Hillary Clinton was pleased to see: 250,000 (the number of poular votes she gained in Kentucky) and 35 (the percentage/margin of difference in Kentucky) were two of them. But maybe the most surprising? 22 million. That’s 22 million dollars she collected last month, long after the pundits declared her mathematically eliminated. That’s extraordinary, because it reflects not just a distaste for Barack Obama (as do the Kentucky numbers) but a remarkably devoted following. What does it mean? Possibly nothing." There's more, but that is the amazing thing: donors gave the former first lady $22 million in a seemingly hopeless (Quixotic?) campaign. On 'personally opposed' Catholics Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput at First Things' On the Square: "In the years after the Carter loss, I began to notice that very few of the people, including Catholics, who claimed to be 'personally opposed' to abortion really did anything about it. Nor did they intend to. For most, their personal opposition was little more than pious hand-wringing and a convenient excuse—exactly as it is today. In fact, I can’t name any pro-choice Catholic politician who has been active, in a sustained public way, in trying to discourage abortion and to protect unborn human life—not one. Some talk about it, and some may mean well, but there’s very little action. In the United States in 2008, abortion is an acceptable form of homicide. And it will remain that way until Catholics force their political parties and elected officials to act differently." The whole thing is worth reading. Who buys porn anymore? Over at the Freakonomics blog, Daniel Hamermesh says: "A California state assemblyman has proposed dealing with the state’s huge budget shortfall by taxing pornography, including the production and sale of pornographic videos — by 25 percent. To an economist this initially sounds like a good idea: An ideal tax is one that doesn’t cause any change in behavior — doesn’t generate any excess burden on the economy. I believe the demand for pornography is quite inelastic, so I don’t expect sales to be reduced much if porn prices rise as producers try and succeed in passing this tax along to consumers." And he goes on to consider the issue of whether porn producers will head out of the Golden State -- perhaps Montana or Utah? -- if the cost of producing pornography also increases. All fine -- this is what freakonomists do. While reading this, though, I'm thinking that in the age of the internet, who buys porn anymore? I'm also not sure that demand for pornography is inelastic, especially considering its easy, free availability on the internet. I like the matter-of-factly introduction of this editorial From the Ottawa Citizen: "Today, 15 new members will be elected to United Nations Human Rights Council. And, as always, at least a few of those new members will be rights-abusers." The fact that this is assumed with 100% confidence explains why the UN is a joke. The green religion Jonah Goldberg on how environmentalism is a religion to the true-believers: "Environmentalism’s most renewable resources are fear, guilt, and moral bullying. Its worldview casts man as a sinful creature who, through the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, abandoned our Edenic past. John Muir, who laid the philosophical foundations of modern environmentalism, described humans as “selfish, conceited creatures.” Salvation comes from shedding our sins, rejecting our addictions (to oil, consumerism, etc.) and demonstrating an all-encompassing love of Mother Earth. Quoth Al Gore: 'The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.' I heard Gore on NPR recently. He was asked about evangelical pastor Joseph Hagee’s absurd comment that Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath for New Orleans’s sexual depravity. Naturally, Gore chuckled at such backwardness. But then the Nobel laureate went on to blame Katrina on man’s energy sinfulness. It struck me that the two men are not so different. If only canoodling Big Easy residents had adhered to The Greenpeace Guide to Environmentally Friendly Sex. Environmentalists insist that their movement is a secular one. But using the word 'secular' no more makes you secular than using the word 'Christian' automatically means you behave like a Christian. Pioneering green lawyer Joseph Sax describes environmentalists as 'secular prophets, preaching a message of secular salvation.' Gore, too, has been dubbed a 'prophet.' A green-themed California hotel provides Gore’s 'An Inconvenient Truth' next to the Bible and a Buddhist tome." And we haven't even got to how buying carbon off-sets are the modern equivalent of indulgences. Levant -- the one-man anti-HRC machine You should be reading Ezra Levant who is taking on the human rights commissions daily in his indispensable blog. A few days ago, though, he had a must-read post on all the goings-on against the human rights commissions and why he is confident that there will be real reform of these monstrosities. I am not sure I share his optimism, but he points to a number of positive developments, including simple publicity and the fact that previously uninterested journalists are now starting to ask questions. Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The challenge for conservatives in the future: over-coming their own success Ramesh Ponnuru in Time: "In truth, Newt Gingrich's Republican party was declining in the 1990s. Once welfare reform passed and crime dropped, middle-class Americans stopped seeing the federal government as a threat to their interests and values. They began to look more kindly on government activism. Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' was a response to this public mood. Its inadequacy is now obvious to almost everyone. But Bush saw his party's problems more clearly than many of his conservative critics now do." That is, many problems were solved and that many of the ones that remain seem intractable to the public. Conservatives could still point out that many remaining problems are, at the very least, made worse by government. But this is harder to do considering that the success of the Contract with America, policy-oriented Republican government (combined with reforming governors at the state level) in the 1990s which has made the American public less anxious about an over-bearing, expensive and incompetent state. Now that competency in handling the ship of state is the question rather than what the specifics of policies is the most important consideration in politics, the drift (to put it kindly) of the Bush administration and GOP Congress in recent years, hands a huge advantage to the Democrats. To counter this advantage, the Republicans will need some really good, really big ideas. Finally someone has said it Melanie Phillips has a great column in the Daily Mail criticizing efforts to further liberalize Britain's reproductive technologies regulations, which are all too often promoted by appeals to assist the infertile (who would benefit from relaxing rules on assisted reproduction) and the sick (who would benefit from the treatments that are promised by enthusiastic supporters of the unethical). Phillips says: "Of course, we should have intense sympathy for people and families afflicted by childlessness or terrible disease. But they must not be allowed to use this as emotional blackmail and hold an entire society and its moral codes to ransom." She says that real ethical discussion is trumped by emotional appeals. She's right but few people recognize this. Even the Germans don't like Germany From the Daily Mail: "The figures showed 165,180 German citizens migrated elsewhere last year, an increase of nearly 10,000 from 2006, with Switzerland, the United States, Poland and Austria the top destinations. A total of 111,291 Germans returned from abroad, resulting in a net loss of 53,889 citizens in 2007, the third straight year in which more Germans have left the country than returned." A libertarian might say that Germans are looking for opportunities abroad because high taxes, oppressive regulation and a rigid labour market make it difficult to get ahead in the Fatherland. Mark Steyn might say it is because Germany is becoming less German and therefore less attractive to the krauts (he would probably use that word, too). An alternative explanation is that Germany is too German. Whatever the reason, it is significant that so many German are leaving Germany. Monday, May 19, 2008
Support for McCain's health plan Writing in the Dallas Morning News, two fellas from the Manhattan Institute, David Gratzer and Paul Howard, note the benefits of Senator John McCain's health plan. Their arguments are straight-forward: 1) McCain's plan addresses a number of flaws in the current system including the perversity of having health insurance tied to employment and creating the ability to buy health insurance out-of-state, and 2) while there still might be flaws, it is necessary to reduce the political pressure for worse solutions (such as a fully government run system). Indeed, McCain's plan is fairly bold -- enough so to make a difference -- while eschewing a complete market solution that would frighten anxious or vulnerable voters. This is one policy area in which the Republicans can reduce the ideas gap that exists between them and the Democrats and remain true to their market-oriented principles. Republicans: The party of big government Robert Novak says the GOP position on the $300 billion farm bill, filled with non-farm pork, is emblematic of what ails the party: "A bill that raises spending 44 percent above last year's level has been approved by a majority of both Senate and House Republicans, dooming any chance of sustaining President Bush's promised veto. GOP leaders were divided, with Bush sounding an uncertain trumpet. Today's Republican Party -- divided, drifting, demoralized -- is epitomized by the farm bill... Fearing a November tsunami for the Democrats, incumbent Republicans talked about following their new standard-bearer, John McCain, against pork. But that's not the way they voted last week. George W. Bush was just as ambivalent. In 2002, he signed a massive farm bill. But with Democrats now in control of Congress, Bush preaches the old-time religion. Addressing the House Republican caucus behind closed doors at the White House on May 7, he disclosed that he would veto the farm bill, then implied it was all right if members 'voted their districts' -- that is, if the "aggies" supported the bill... Nevertheless, would the party's leadership in Congress push hard enough to produce the votes to sustain a veto? There was never any hope in the Senate, where Republican leader Mitch McConnell not only supported the farm bill but also earmarked a tax provision benefiting horse farms in his state of Kentucky... [House] Minority Whip Roy Blunt voted for the bill. So did Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, who was seen whipping for passage. House Republicans voted 100 to 91 to approve the bill (with only 15 Democrats opposed), assuring a veto override. Similarly, in the Senate, 35 Republicans voted for the bill. Only 13 Republicans voted no, and the only Democrats opposing it were Rhode Island's two senators." It seems that Republicans need some time in opposition to rediscover their small-government principles. Two thoughts on the number 75,000  1) That's a lot of people for a political demonstration and if Barack Obama has the equivalent of a small city showing up for one of his rallies in May, John McCain is in some serious trouble in November. 2) If the crowd shot of Obama's rally shows 75,000 people (or a large portion of them), there is no way that Toronto's Gay Pride Parade gets a million. 75,000 is a lot of people. The New York Times has the story on the Portland rally. Will it all come down to Omaha, Nebraska? I doubt it but the New York Sun examines Sheldon Adler's idea that the whole U.S. election could come down to one city in the mid-west. That's because if just four specific states change from Republican to Democrat or vice versa, there could be a 269-269 electoral vote tie and Nebraska and Maine apportion their Electoral College votes by Congressional District. Seems fanciful. Some ideas for John McCain Yuval Levin brings Senator John McCain's varied policy ideas together into a semi-coherent agenda for the Republican presidential candidate and his party. What Levin does -- what David Frum and others have suggested for the GOP but which the party and McCain has been unable to do for themselves -- is to once again make the Republican Party the party of ideas. Levin suggests be specific (too specific if they must) and principled (conservative not maverick principles) and victory is possible. Levin's ideas present the Republican Party -- which has had the White House for the past eight years and Congress for most of the past 16 -- the party of reform. It is a tough sell but one which McCain might uniquely be capable of doing. The need to prioritize John Bolton in today's Wall Street Journal: "Finally, negotiations entail opportunity costs, consuming scarce presidential time and attention. Those resources cannot be applied everywhere, and engaging in true discussions, as opposed to political charades, does divert time and attention from other priorities. No better example can be found than the Bush administration's pursuit of the Annapolis Process between Arabs and Israelis, which has gone and will go nowhere. While Annapolis has been burning up U.S. time and effort, Lebanon has been burning, as Hezbollah strengthens its position there. This is an opportunity cost for the U.S., and a tragedy for the people of Lebanon." There is a tendency among, well, basically everyone to think the president can solve all the world's problems if only he had the desire to act. But a president and his administration can barely tackle every hot spot with the attention it requires and the time and other resources used to address one problem area (Iran, North Korea, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan) will be used at the expense of another. This is not a tragedy, but a fact of life and one that conservatives much more than liberals understand: the very idea of limits. That's not to say that the United States will try to correct itself in Iraq and ignore nuclear weapons in Iran or North Korea or turn a blind eye to genocide in Sudan, but rather that its focus will be one or another. A superpower doesn't have super powers. Sunday, May 18, 2008
Against Alberta's gag laws Mark Milke muses in the Calgary Herald: "I'm not sure which is worse: journalists who depend on freedom of speech, but who support government restrictions on third-party election advertising, or politicians who come up with the policies, which damage debate by clamping down on political speech." One might want to call this election finance reform, but consider the less than upright motivation for the proposal: "The spur for this comes from organized labour's multimillion dollar advertising campaign during the last provincial election. Union-funded "Albertans for Change" aired a series of slick radio and television advertisements that questioned the premier's capabilities and vision. The premier was offended, but he should get over it. That's part of democratic give-and-take." But those in political office never have to merely 'get over it' -- they can get even. They can legislate. They can restrict the freedom of citizens to oppose them. They can act on personal vendettas and have the media cheer their vindictiveness as progress. Its very sad -- and predictable. David Cameron is sounding more conservative Lowering taxes. Cutting welfare. Reducing bureaucracy. It is possible for a conservative leader to be conservative. The Sunday Telegraph has the story of Cameron's plan for a Tory government. No consolation prize for Hillary George F. Will says in his Washington Post column that having lost the Democratic contest to be the party's presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton is neither entitled to the vice presidency nor the best person for the job -- now that Barack Obama is battling John McCain for independents and marginal Republicans, the highly divisive Clinton is the worse possible choice for veep. Top 10 Jackie Chan Fight Scenes Here with commentary. And then there's the Top 10 Jackie Chan Stunts, with the same guy commenting. Friday, May 16, 2008
Plan B to be as easily available as aspirin The Ottawa Citizen has the story about how Plan B will be available without the benefit of consulting either a doctor or pharmacist. The ladies at ProWomanProLife discuss the issue. Andrea questions the journalism (press release re-write) and Tanya looks at what other health bodies are saying (see your doctor first before using the morning-after pill). Véronique and Rebecca wonder about medical follow-up for this not-entirely benign drug. In other words, never mind the aborfacient nature of the MAP, this move is unsafe for women. Where are the feminists? 'What's wrong with CSI?'  If you watch CSI (the original -- who can stomach David Carusso?), you've seen Grissom, the lead forensic investigator, say that science doesn't lie, the evidence will lead you to the truth, and other such blind statements of faith in science. Roger Koppl writes in Forbes that when it comes to forensic evidence there is still a fair bit of error -- false-positives -- that end up making the legal system a little less just. Here are the, em, facts: "If only forensics were that reliable. Instead, to judge by the most comprehensive study on the reliability of forensic evidence to date, the error rate is more than 10% in five categories of analysis, including fiber, paint and body fluids. (Meaning: When the expert says specimen X matches source Y, there's a 10% probability he's wrong.) DNA and fingerprints are more reliable but still not foolproof. The 1995 study, in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, looked at proficiency tests labs take to see whether their work is sound. More recent studies have also shown problems. Though a 2005 study in the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology suggests a fingerprint false-positive rate a bit below 1%, a widely read 2006 experiment shows an alarming 4% false-positive rate." Koppl then lists several high profile forensic failures before asking, "How can we preserve the usefulness of forensic evidence while protecting the public when it breaks down?" He answers: "The core problem with the forensic system is monopoly. Once evidence goes to one lab, it is rarely examined by any other. That needs to change. Each jurisdiction should include several competing labs. Occasionally the same DNA evidence, for instance, could be sent to three different labs for analysis." The expense of duplicate or triplicate testing, which is nominal, would not outweigh the costs of erroneous guilty verdicts. But what about the cost of adding a whole additional lab to the cast of CBS's CSI? Koppl also suggests separating the evidence labs and police departments, a fine idea that would make examination of fingerprints, paint chips and semen (its CSI so there is always semen), independent and less prone to pressure to find the 'right' suspect. That would involve moving Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) to a new set. Thursday, May 15, 2008
Everyone's worst case scenario Bob Beckel might not be the most trusted political authority and one guesses that he is saying what he is saying because it is mildly controversial or unexpected, but he argues that Barack Obama might not have any choice about having Hillary Clinton as his running mate if the Democratic National Convention foists her upon the ticket. I think the Obama phenomenon in the Democratic primaries, at least in the first month or so, had very little to do with Barack Obama and nearly everything to do with a sizable proportion of voters wanting to rid the Democrat Party of the Clintons once and for all. I can't see them accepting this arrangement of which Beckel speculates. The title says it all Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal: "Democracies Don't Let People Die." Henninger is writing about the typhoon in Burma and earthquake in Red China. The point is simple: the disaster is natural but the unnecessary human suffering is caused by government. Happy anniversary to Robert Novak 45 years of column writing. At first, (Roland) Evans-Novak was considered liberal. Pictures are worth thousands of words I know that Reuters photographers have done some pretty despicable things in the past but assuming there is no doctoring of these pictures from the Chinese earthquake, these are powerful photos. (Warning: pictures of dead and desperate people.) Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Inadvertent humour from the New York Times The New York Times confused by good economic news: "What, then, are we supposed to make of the latest batch of better-than-expected news?" Because good news during a Republican administration when the standard story-line is that the tanking economy helps the Democrats, is news that should probably be ignored -- at least until it can't be ignored because people's own economic situation doesn't jive with the relentless bad economic news. So the Times must cast doubt on the good news. What exactly does he want the UN to do Canadian Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier says the UN should force Burma to accept foreign aid and its distribution to the country's citizens. Nice idea, but what can the UN do? Use its moral authority -- which Burma's leaders don't respect anyway -- to persuade Rangoon to change its mind? Appeal to the better angels among the regime's leaders (if such exists)? Bernier has placed his faith, like most Canadian politicians, in the UN; it is unwarranted and unwise, and an excuse for Canada to do nothing substantive for the displaced and hungry people of Burma. Strangest footnote ever In a New York Times blog post: "For ejaculate adjustment in meadow voles, see delBarco-Trillo, J. and Ferkin, M. H. 2004." To be fair, it is in a story on what lessons from the reproductive systems of various animals can be applied to human in vitro fertilization. Let your politicians know how you feel about gag laws Kalim Kassam, general manager of The Western Standard, makes the case against Alberta gag laws and concludes: "Before the fall, Stelmach and the Progressive Conservatives need to hear from Alberta citizens that we do not support the stifling of our free speech, we do not support our exclusion from the political process, and we will not cede a virtual monopoly on political speech to the parties." Before long, the only way citizens will be able to affect public policy is by voting and directly contacting elected officials individually -- no more engaging their fellow citizens in advocacy activities when gag laws are passed. Or at least citizens can do that until politicians can find a way to avoid the inconvenience of elections, petitions and meeting constituents. British Columbia and Alberta voters should contact their provincial representatives and urge them to oppose laws limtiting third party election activity and political donations. What I'm reading 1. Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin by John A. Adam and Lawrence Weinstein. The subtitle is misleading because it is less about solving world problems than coming up with the solution to hypothetical questions with unknowable answers such as how many people are flying above America right now (or currently picking their nose) or how many golf balls would it take to encircle the world. There is more math than I am use to in a book and it took a while to get re-acquainted with scientific notation, but the book is a lot of fun. 2. "Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States," a Manhattan Institute study by Jacob L. Vigdor. (A pdf-version is also available.) It examines census data to determine the economic, cultural and civic assimilation of numerous immigrant groups. 3. "The Ethics of Immigration: An Exchange," with William Chip and Michael Scaperlanda in the May issue of First Things. 4. "Bird-watcher: Thinking about Charlie Parker, every day," by David Remnick in the May 19 New Yorker. 5. "Trade Liberalization and Productivity Dynamics: Evidence from Canada," a StatsCan research paper by Alla Lileeva. Paul Nyman should be getting big league money to help pitching coaches His Hardball Times analysis of why Barry Zito suddenly became useless has lots of video, graphics and description to explain why he lost his velocity, control and movement. The future of baseball analysis is here and this is some of the best. Latest evidence that Dallaire is a moron Senator Romeo Dallaire equated Canada's treatment of Omar Khadr with the actions of al-Qaeda. He told a parliamentary committee yesterday: "The minute you start playing with human rights, with conventions, with civil liberties, in order to say that you're doing it to protect yourself and you are going against those rights and conventions, you are no better than the guy who doesn't believe in them at all." I'm not particularly comfortable with torture and I don't really buy the argument that we can torture a little bit because we are the good guys. But I don't want my government lectured by Dallaire. If anyone lacks the moral authority to castigate others over human rights, it is the UN-appointed Major General who watched and did nothing as genocide occurred under his nose in Rwanda. Of today's polls and November's election I have been forwarded some interesting polling numbers about the possible November match ups and I find them intriguing for the limited snapshot they provide but meaningless as a predictor of what will happen six months from now. Right now, Hillary voters might not be inclined to vote in November if she is not on the ballot and ditto for Barack backers. Conservatives are still tetchy about John McCain but will they really stay home when the Democrats' full liberalism is on display. Most voters aren't even paying attention and won't until at least the conventions at the end of the Summer and then there is the actual campaign and presidential debates. Who knows how Americans will feel about the economy in six months? Or about national security? What will be the news from Iraq? What will the economic indicators say? Anyway, for its worth (which ain't much) the data sent my way shows that with Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, both Texas and South Carolina are in play (within two points) and North Carolina is tied. That would spell big trouble for the GOP. Texas? I don't believe it, but consistent polls that show this might change the dynamic of the campaign by convincing the candidates to alter their strategies. With Obama as the Democratic nominee, Minnesota is out of reach for Republicans but with Hillary running as president, its a virtual tie. If Barack is the candidate, Michigan is a tie, but if Hillary is the candidate, Michigan is handily in the GOP column. Against Barack, McCain will have trouble in Montana and Nebraska but win easily if he runs against Hillary. Conversely, against Barack, McCain wins Missouri and Kentucky easily but is running neck-and-neck if facing Hillary. Depending on the poll, McCain is just ahead of both Democrats in New Jersey or behind by 6-8 points. McCain wins Florida by 15 over Barack but loses by two against Hillary. Can there be that much of a swing depending on the candidate? I doubt it and that is just another reason to take these polling figures with a generous helping of salt. In Colorado, McCain loses to Barack by three but beats Hillary by 14. All of which means ... precisely zilch. This election might be another 2000/2004 election with the campaign being fought over a half-dozen states. This seems more likely if Hillary Clinton is the candidate than if Barack Obama is. But Hillary as the Democratic candidate seems highly unlikely. The economy is a mess, Iraq is a mess, the Republicans are a mess and Democrats do not appear to be the Left Coast freaks of old (or at least are not perceived to be.) 2008 is not 2004. But John McCain is not George W. Bush. He will have time to define himself. And the bloody Democratic battle might leave a lot of voters disgruntled. This phenomenon might be overblown, but it might not be either; identity politics is a powerful political force and both Democrats have tapped into the grievance vein in a way that might leave some open wounds in six months. But pundits said the same thing about 1976 and the Reagan-Ford battle and Ford almost came back to beat Jimmy Carter in the general election. All I'm saying is that November is an eternity away in politics. Polls today, gone tomorrow and all that. The only safe bet is that 2008 is probably not going to be like the campaign in 2004 and 2000 -- unless it is. That's not a hedge; that's politics. |