Comments on politics, the culture, economics and religion by Paul Tuns -- in short, everything about the human endeavour from a non-hyphenated conservative perspective. I am Toronto-based writer and editor, whose articles, columns and reviews have appeared in more than 35 publications. I am editor-in-chief of The Interim, Canada's life and family newspaper, author of Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal and a regular contributor to the book pages of the Halifax Herald.

 
Three and out

3. At his Pinstriped Bible blog for the Yes Network, Steven Goldman makes the (strong) case for not choosing among Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Chien-Ming Wang for the final two spots in the rotation. Instead, says Goldman, the New York Yankees should use them as needed for two starting spots and long relief: "the Yankees really don't need to be making aggressive decisions about Wang, Chamberlain, or Hughes short of just doing what seems most productive on a day-by-day basis." For years, Goldman reminds us, this is how pitching staffs were used. For a number of reasons (that Goldman acknowledges) it is difficult to do that today and if it didn't work, such "unconventional" pitching staff usage would open manager Joe Girardi to enormous criticism. Better to fail following the herd than risk success (and failure) with a little creativity -- even if it was tried and true.

2. Speaking of following the herd and the Yankees bullpen, the Bronx Bombers lost in Cleveland today in the ninth inning while using David Robertson and Phil Coke instead of Mariano Rivera. Tied 4-4 at the bottom of the ninth, Girardi used middle relievers, as is the practise. Too many managers use their closers just to closer; never bring them in until you have a one, two or three run lead in the ninth. But there is no better time to bring in the light's out guy (the closer) than a tie late in the game. Sadly, hardly any managers do that. Today, following conventional wisdom, Joe Girardi and his Yanks blew the chance to win by playing lesser pitchers in a high leverage situation. But he won't be criticized for that because that is what managers do. If they played Rivera in the ninth (and tenth) and the team lost in the 11th, he would have been criticized for using Rivera too early in the game. Baseball is a conservative sport and tradition dies hard, even if they are counter-productive.

1. FoxSports is reporting that the Washington Nationals will draft phenom pitching prospect Stephen Strasburg in the June amateur draft. Strasburg could command a $50 million deal before he even throws a professional pitch. Whether he is worth the money is an open question, but he does seem to be worth the risk of not being able to sign him. Indeed, as Ken Rosenthal explains, with the first and tenth picks overall this year and being on pace to land the first overall next year, they will be in fine shape if they can't come to a deal with Strasburg; the Nats would get the second overall in 2010 if they can't sign their number one this year. Not a bad "failure" if that is the result; it is conceivable that is the plan.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:24 PM

 
Tiller shot and killed

The abortionist George Tiller, nicknamed by opponents Tiller the Killer, was shot and killed at church this morning. See the Wichita Eagle, Washington Post and LifeSiteNews.com for details. The whole pro-life movement will get smeared because of the actions of one person who may oppose abortion but who is certainly not pro-life. We will likely find, as is often the case in such circumstances, that the perpetrator's life was touched by abortion (such as by an ex-girlfriend or something).

Pro-lifers don't resort to violence to solve the abortion mess. Many do, however, pray for abortionists, for their conversion to pro-life so that they may end their gruesome practise and seek forgiveness for their sins.
posted by Paul Tuns at 3:02 PM

 
No to universal preschool

Stanford's Hoover Institution resident education expert Chester Finn in the New York Post:

Most parents are delighted to share their childcare expenses with taxpayers. Yet there's shockingly little evidence that this costly dash to universalize the preschool experience will do much good for American education, particularly the kids who most need help preparing for kindergarten. It's more like a new middle-class entitlement -- and an expansion of the public-school empire.

He then explains the five basic flaws of such an idea. Go read it all if this type of thing interests you, but this point is worth highlighting:

We must also recognize the contradiction in advocates' dual promise: if gap-closing is the goal, universal programs don't get us there. In fact, they usually do more for the haves than the have-nots. To boost the school-success prospects of seriously challenged kids -- chiefly daughters and sons of poor, young, single moms with little schooling of their own -- policy makers need to focus intensive educational help on them, starting at birth and involving their parents, too. That's not cheap, but the sums already flowing into -- and promised to -- this field would suffice if properly targeted rather than spread over millions of families that don't really need it.

I would suggest that the goal is the creation of a middle class entitlement to curry favour with voters.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:08 AM

 
I don't entirely disagree with Hanson's minimal morality

Robin Hanson on morality:

[I]t is usually good for people to do things to get what they want. So this seems to me the natural limit of minimal morality: trust this basic pattern only, and not any subtler corrections. This basically picks a goodness measure close to preference utilitarianism, which is pretty close to the economist’s usual efficiency criterion.

The operative word is usually, which Hanson acknowledges. Bryan Caplan calls Hanson's view, "the least plausible moral principle since 'Might makes right'," because that usually ends up being pretty important limit and there is no common morality to adjudicate those times when what you want to do interferes with what I want to do. I would add, however, that more tolerance of what others want to do would lead to fewer conflicts because most of the time a person wanting to limit what another does is merely to force them to a new preference (the interfering party's) than to prevent actual harm.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:06 AM

 
Consider this

From George F. Will's Washington Post column:

State governments, too, are expected to accept Washington's whims, but plucky Indiana is being obdurate. Gov. Mitch Daniels, alarmed by what he calls the Obama administration's "shock-and-awe statism," is supporting state Treasurer Richard Mourdock's objection to the administration's treatment of Chrysler's creditors, which include the pension funds for Indiana's retired teachers and state police officers and a state construction fund. Together they own $42.5 million of Chrysler's $6.9 billion (supposedly) secured debt.

Compliant, because dependent, banks bowed to the administration's demand that they accept less than settled bankruptcy law would have given them as secured creditors. Next, the president denounced as "speculators" remaining secured creditors, who then folded and accepted less on the dollar than an unsecured creditor -- the United Auto Workers union -- is getting. This raw taking of property from secured investors penalized those "speculators" -- retired Indiana teachers and state police officers who, Mourdock says, are being "ripped off by the federal government."

Will notes that "Promise-keeping, including honoring contracts, is the default position of a lawful society." Obama's America is lawless, elevating the whims of government intervenors to the overbearing and overwhelming determinator of, well, everything.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:02 AM

 
Four and down (Four things I think I think about the 2009 NFL season)

4. It is too early to make a guess how the Dallas Cowboys will do. I am convinced that the 'Boys need to increase their running plays by 20%, which would get them near league average for runs as a percentage of plays. I don't know if they are going to do that or not and my guess is they won't, not with their "In Romo We Trust" philosophy. We'll have some indication by the end of September.

3. The Cincinnati Bengals will surprise fans and pundits in 2009, finishing 8-8. I like the changes they've made and they'll have a healthy Carson Palmer returning under center. They will be the big surprise '09.

2. Green Bay will challenge the Minnesota Vikings for the NFC North title and will, at the very worse, get a wild card spot. They lost four games by four points or less, more than any other team in 2008, which means they were not as bad as their 6-10 record would seem to indicate. Their defense was atrocious and they've worked to improve it. QB Aaron Rodgers has a full year's experience.

1. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who were 9-7 last season, will struggle to win seven this year and might be as bad as 5-11. I'm quite open to changing this and I think Byron Leftwich, the backup QB for the Pittsburgh Steelers last season, will be an improvement over Jeff Garcia -- if Leftwich wins the starting quarterback job. But the Bucs really slid in the final weeks of 2008 and the off-season roster changes everywhere but quarterback have been for the worse.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:59 AM

 
Stuff

1. P.J. O'Rourke on the automobile in the Wall Street Journal. Grab a coffee and enjoy this read.

2. From Slate: "Frying Nemo: Do Fish Feel Pain."

3. The Wall Street Journal reports that English soccer is hurting.

4. Professor Ian Plimer video on the climate change religion being a bunch of bull.

5. "Alien Technology and Economic Growth," from Ecocomics, in which the economics of comics blog examines the question: why "the worlds in our favorite comics still have potholes, poverty, and petroleum-powered cars."
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:53 AM

 
Might (not) want to mention this to your friendly neighbourhood Tamil protester

The Observer reports on young Tamils who were forced to fight for the LTTE, some of whom were not even teenagers when they took up arms. The paper reports:

The accounts of these boys and girls who surrendered to the Sri Lankan army were shocking. They say they were dragged screaming from their families and sent into action with only a few days of basic training. The older members of the LTTE warned them to keep firing and advancing, or they would be shot by their own side from behind.

Those who did try to escape said they were fired on by their own side. Children who were recaptured had their hair shaved off to mark them as deserters and boys were beaten.

posted by Paul Tuns at 9:49 PM

 
Three and out

3. To trade or not to trade? Probably better not to trade says Tim Marchman at SI.com. Marchman says that on a dollar paid per win basis, the average prospect is a better deal over the course of his tenure with a team than a high priced rental. In theory this is true, but only when games are played on paper and not by real live bodies in actual games. In one sense, the theoreticians are correct: better to trade for players now than at the July 31 deadline and get superior players more starts or at-bats. If you have a reasonable chance at making the playoffs, would you rather pay a Jake Peavy, Cliff Lee or Victor Martinez $10-$15 million a year or keep a handful of prospects, only some of whom will make it to the Major League roster?

2. SI.com's Jon Heyman notices that the Seattle Mariners have six players that should garner serious interest from other teams: starters Erik Bedard, Jarrod Washburn and Miguel Batista, 3B Adrian Beltre, SS Yuniesky Betancourt and 1B Russell Branyan. I wouldn't think that Betancourt or Branyan are really up for grabs because of their reasonable price tags. And were it not for Carlos Silva's "bloated contract" he, too, would no doubt interest some teams; indeed, it is precisely his remaining $34 million contract that has the Mariners interested in moving him. Bedard is definitely the most attractive trade bait and Heyman is correct to suggest the Philadelphia Phillies should be making inquiries, but there are plenty of other teams that could use a quality left-hander who'll only cost $7.5 mil a year. I'd put the St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets at the top of the list, along with Philly.

1. Forbes.com has a story and slide show on the secondary market for baseball tickets, where you can now buy tickets at below face value. The story also notes that many teams are offering discounts and special promotions.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:44 PM

 
Labour polling third

The Daily Telegraph reports that according to an ICM poll, the UK Tories have 40% support followed by the Liberal Democrats at 25% and Labour at 22%. When people are upset with the corruption of those in government, big government parties do poorly and small government or anti-government right-wing parties do better. (Bryan Appleyard might have another argument about why right-wing parties do better when people are upset with their MPs, namely that they are Nazis.)

The MP expenses scandal is also hurting the Labour Party in the polls for the European parliament in advance of this Thursday's vote. ICM finds the Tories have 29%, Lib Dems 20, Labour 17, the Greens 11%, the United Kingdown Independence Party 10% and British National Party 5%.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:33 PM

 
Gay Pride event at American embassy in Baghdad

Amy Ridenour at the National Center blog on the decision of the Obama administration's decision to have a gay-themed party at the U.S. embassy in the Iraqi capital:

Having a high-profile homosexual event in the capital of an Islamic country calls the diplomatic tact of the Obama Administration - already marred by inappropriate gifts to heads of state and embarrassing mistakes in translation - into question yet again...

Expect this to provide yet another lesson for the Obama team about putting the prerogatives of their special-interest supporters above traditional business practices.

posted by Paul Tuns at 9:24 PM

 
Stuff

1. Krispy Kreme doing to Fairfax County's sewage system what it does to the human body.

2. "A quick guide to alternative energy," by Ronald Bailey.

3. High heels for babies and other atrocities -- "something with personality for children to wear that complement moms who are modern." As one dad says, these are clothes that mothers would buy but that no father would consider dressing their daughter in such outfits.

4. Christopher Beam at Slate on Obama rewarding financial supporters and fundraisers with ambassadorships.

5. A list of summer reading lists.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:18 PM

 
Playing Jack Kevorkian

LifeSiteNews.com reports that Al Pacino is sleighted to play Dr. Jack Kevorkian in an HBO biopic directed by Barry Levinson.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:27 PM

 
Three and out (Clint Hurdle edition)

3. Clint Hurdle is out as Colorado Rockies manager and that probably makes sense -- or at least as much sense as anything the 18-28 Rox could have done to appear to right their ship. (I called this before the season started, by the way, that Hurdle would be the first manager in the National League to be fired). Hurdle "earned" extra seasons with the team's improbable 2007 season in which they squeaked into the playoffs and made the World Series before losing to the Boston Red Sox; in eight full or part seasons, he guided his team to a 534-625 record and six fourth or fifth place finishes, putting together just one winning season. Anyway, promoting bench coach Jim Tracy, who has never shown an aptitude for quality managing in either Los Angeles or Pittsburgh, is a step in the wrong direction. Even as an interim arrangement this is a mistake.

2. As I note above, Hurdle has never been a great manager, at least as far as the record indicates. That said, it is notoriously hard to determine what influence a manager has on a team's record. Clearly, though, whatever influence he had, was not helping them to win. But too often a manager takes the fall for a team's inability to win. Perhaps in-game managerial decisions have led to the team's dismal 2-9 record in one-run games and 0-2 record in extra innings. Perhaps, but I'm don't know. Where it not for the Los Angeles Dodgers coming to Coors Field and sweeping the Rox while outscoring them 31-13, Hurdle might have kept his job a little longer. And until the Dodgers pummeled the Rockies, Hurdle's team had scored as much as it was scored against. I don't know what all this means, but I'm skeptical about putting the blame on the manager's shoulders, or at least predominantly on his shoulders.

1. There is plenty of blame to go around. Two regulars are hitting under 200: 3B Garrett Atkins is hitting 195/273/292 (BA/OBP/SLG) and INF/OF Ian Stewart is hitting 187/290/421. They have been given 261 at-bats and they have no production to show for it. Everyday SS Troy Tulowitzki is hitting barely above replacement level at 227/318/393. The starting catcher Chris Iannetta is hitting 231; starting 2B Clint Barnes is hitting 234. When more than half your lineup is hitting under 235, it is hard to win. Is Hurdle responsible for their collective prolonged slumps? Probably not. There is a good chance that several of them will begin to hit as they regress to the mean, and sadly Tracy or whoever is managing at the moment will get the credit. Never mind that only occasionally does a manager (or more likely his coach) make a suggestion to alter a swing or stance that makes the player better. That doesn't stop baseball pundits with crediting the new staff with miraculous powers of motivation or whatever magic they perform to suddenly get more out of the same players. This is why I am not enamoured with most managerial changes; they don't matter but almost everyone thinks they do. The Rockies will finish fourth or fifth, with around 70 wins, because they are a lousy team, not because of the ineptitude of their manager(s).
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:57 PM

 
Four and down

4. At TSN.com Mike Florio looks at a few players who should retire. I think former Indianapolis Colts WR Marvin Harrison who is a lock to take his advice which is a little unfortunate considering he might have a lot left to offer a team if he'd take the pay cut for a limited role as the second catching target. I wouldn't be surprised to see Chad Ochocinco have a much better season in Cincinnati and Jon Kitna is the backup QB in Dallas for no other reason than to change the mood in the clubhouse (which the Cowboys need). But Deuce McAllister and Brett Favre are demeaning themselves if they come back.

3. I saw my first season preview magazine on the shelf today. Had to buy the Yahoo! Sports/Pro Football Weekly Preview '09. It is the least good of the annual preview magazines but I need my fix.

2. Neat organizational rankings by Adam Schein at Foxsports.com. How does one choose between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots? The Pats are the model organization and the Steelers get a bump from the Rooney family ownership because they define class act. I think the Indianapolis Colts should be higher than seventh and Green Bay Packers warrant better than eighth. I think Schein gives Eli Manning too much credit and the New York Giants organization in its entirety is over-valued. I thought the Kansas City Chiefs would be higher but Schein convincingly defends the 20th overall rating, which seems to go counter the conventional wisdom about the organization. Both the 22nd-ranked Buffalo Bills and the NFL need to understand why playing in Toronto once a year hurts the team. And, as usual, coach Dick Jauron is over-rated. The Washington Redskins are quickly becoming the east coast version of the Oakland Raiders without the relocations and are probably be worse than their 24th ranking. (The St. Louis Rams, at least, seem to have a plan and probably have better coaches.) The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a rudderless organization and I would rate them a little worse than 26th. I think it is too early to put the Denver Broncos at 29th although there is every sign that they are a completely different organization than they were two years ago and not in a good way. And just as it is difficult to choose between the Steelers and Patriots at the best, how does one choose among the ineptitudes demonstrated by the Raiders, Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions?

1. Over at the ProFootballWeekly.com blog, Eric Edholm looks at the most over-hyped story lines in NFL circles today and says that he is tired about the all talk about Terrell Owens but that the Brett Favre coming out of retirement and the actual health of Tom Brady's knee are legitimate topics of discussion. He expresses my sentiments precisely: TO (wait "until he really does something stupid") and Favre and Brady ("the Patriots having their QB back and the Vikings potentially adding a Hall of Famer will have major impacts on their season").
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:37 PM

 
Something to think about

Kathy Shaidle:

'Tolerance' and 'diversity' are mutually exclusive

When the population mix reaches a certain point, you can't have both.

Very soon, society will be forced to pick one. It won't be pretty...

posted by Paul Tuns at 6:25 PM

 
'Oral Sex Is the New Goodnight Kiss'

That is a sub-head in an ABC News story on the casual sex as practised by (some) teens.
posted by Paul Tuns at 2:00 PM

 
The truth of the matter

John Robson looks at politicians in general and senior Conservative politicians in particular and absolves them of lying, not because they don't utter falsehoods but because they don't know the truth. For example:

When Flaherty said Monday that he wouldn't reveal the true deficit figure until June, do you think he had a firm intention to reveal it Tuesday? Or a firm intention not to? If so, you misunderstand his mental landscape. It doesn't contain such items.

Robson says, that such non-truth telling fosters cynicism. I'm not sure that is a bad thing because skepticism about the words of politicians is long overdue. It is too bad, though, that politicians don't pay a price for this sad state of affairs.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:42 AM

 
The politics of envy

Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek:

Nora ______ e-mailed me earlier today; she was terse: "How do you sleep at night justifying policys [sic] that make incomes more unequal???"

My first response is to say "grow up." As long as Mr. Smith earns his income rather than steals it, Mr. Jones ought not care. Envy is an ugly sentiment, and becomes ghastly and dangerous whenever it is manifested in government policies.

posted by Paul Tuns at 5:39 AM

 
Stuff

1. "10 scandalous facts about historical figures," from Listverse, including "Gandhi was a dirty old man."

2. Smurf that. The Daily Telegraph reports: "[A] group will paint themselves blue and don white gnome hats for the attempt on June 8. They hope to smash the existing record of 1,253 Smurfs in one place, which was set in the town of Castleblayney in Northern Ireland last July."

3. The "most expensive dirt" comes from Yankee Stadium and is pressed into coins. The quarter-sized mementos of the House that Ruth Built, taken from Yankee Stadium in its last game in September 2008, go for $89.95.

4. RealClearMarkets has "8 Companies We Loved and Lost to the Recession."

5. The Daily Telegraph reports, "A family breakfast turned into a religious experience when they spotted what appears to be the face of Jesus in the lid of a Marmite jar."

6. Golfers wear the strangest costumes. Or at least John Daly does -- check out the slide show at FanHouse.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:36 AM

 
A great question that gets to the truth of the matter

Gerry Nicholls:

According to this Globe and Mail headline "Canadian taxpayers" will soon own shares in General Motors.

I wonder if I can sell mine?

posted by Paul Tuns at 10:10 PM

 
The unknown Che

Listverse has "Top 10 Things You didn’t Know About Che Guevara." He was born Ernesto Lynch and was nicknamed "the pig" because of his bathing habits and his "weekly shirt". Not on the list is Che Guevera's murder and mayhem, which too few of his fans acknowledge.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:05 PM

 
Four and down

4. Last week James Harrison, defensive player of the year and one of the heroes of the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl win, refused to go to the White House saying that the president doesn't really want to visit the Steelers because he only invites Super Bowl winners. I don't blame him for not wanting to go to the White House -- I wouldn't either -- but his reasoning is silly. As Ross Tucker said at SI.com: "Harrison implied that President Obama only invited the Steelers because they won the Super Bowl and that he would have invited the Cardinals instead if they had won. Yes, James, that's pretty much how it works. Does Harrison want Obama to invite the Detroit Lions and St. Louis Rams instead? Maybe to boost their morale?" The president invites the championship team in all major sports, not the losers. Harrison might not like to fly (his aerophobia has been substantiated) or even the president (which he denies) and both would be legitimate reasons not to make the trip to the White House, but Harrison's argument that only winners get the honour of a photo and handshake with the president misses the point completely.

3. Time magazine has an article entitled, "The NFL's Huge Linemen: Healthier Than You Think?" A study, funded by the NFL, found that "when it comes to their hearts, NFL players may be as healthy as men of the same age in the general population." Some small problems with that statement. That is the study examines all NFL players, not just the behemoths that make their living as lineman. Also, as healthy as the general population is not quite a ringing endorsement.

2. Minnesota Vikings QB Tarvaris Jackson isn't an accurate thrower and now his work ethic is being questioned. As JJ Cooper says at FanHouse, with the Vikes likely to sign Brett Favre, "Jackson would then likely become trade bait or the team's third-string quarterback heading into the season." What is Minny likely to get for him, especially now that Jackson's work ethic is being questioned?

1. Cold Hard Football Facts says that it is harder for a QB to lose 100 games than win 100 (there are only five 100-game losers). Interestingly, two of the seven top all-time losers (95 or more losses) -- Drew Bledsoe and Vinny Testaverde -- were coach Bill Parcells projects.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:53 PM

 
Three and out

3. Jonathan Hale looks at change-up pitches at Hardball Times and says they are about much, much more than just changing speeds.

2. Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports is right to say that speculating that David Ortiz's power has disappeared -- one homerun in 161 ABs, 298 SLG -- because he is off the juice is irresponsible (there is no indication that he was using PEDs or, if he was, that he stopped). Rosenthal says that older players decline, which is true and may explain it. But more importantly is that Big Papi, as Rosenthal also suggests, appears to be losing his skills. Specifically, as I've mentioned before, is that his bat speed is not what it used to be before last season's wrist injury. That loss of bat speed, more than taking or not taking PEDs, can sap a player of power. Watch closely and it isn't that Ortiz isn't smashing the ball, it is that he isn't hitting the ball at the point he used to.

1. Dayn Perry at FoxSports.com has a list of "six deals that should happen sooner rather than later. In most instances, these swaps aren't based on the rumors of the day; rather, they're just hypotheticals that make sense for all parties involved." They make a lot of sense but I can't see any of them happening. The key to some of the deals is making them happen now because four months of better pitching is worth a lot more than two months of better pitching. I'd really like to see the New York Mets acquire Jake Peavy, but I don't see the San Diego Padres parting with him this season (contra all the rumours and the almost trade that didn't occur last week between the Pads and ChiSox).
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:46 PM

 
Conservatism gets its angry face back

Fraser Nelson in the Daily Telegraph:

David Cameron's scowl is coming on nicely. For weeks, he has never left home without it. Whether stepping into his car or the television studio he has been careful to suppress his jovial instincts and instead project anger and determination. Times have changed, and so we are witnessing a leader mid-mutation. The smiling Cameron's role was to detoxify the Tory brand, and seduce wavering voters. The stern-faced Cameron must persuade people that he is a man with enough resolve and ruthlessness to save the country.

Righteous indignation works for both the Right and the Left. I don't like it, but politically speaking it's nice when it benefits our guys, and it usually does so when the indignation is against government and those who populate it. Being anti-government is in season again. Nelson is hopeful that it portends good things -- smaller government conservative things -- in the future:

All this explains the recent ratcheting up of language and promises about how Mr Cameron intends to fundamentally redesign politics. It is the only possible narrative to explain the harsh spending decisions he will have to make – that politics has failed, and therefore he is re-engineering the whole system. This will mean more than sending people text messages to inform them of the passage of the Finance Bill. It will mean dissolving empires of bureaucracies and transferring power back to people by spending a lot less of their money.

posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
Getting 'getting tough on crime' wrong

The Ottawa Citizen opens its editorial on "pandering" on crime thusly:

Vowing to get tough on crime is irresistible to Canadian politicians. They all do it, to a greater or lesser degree, despite falling crime rates in most of the country -- and despite evidence that the "get tough" solutions, such as draconian penalties and more police, have little impact.

This may all be true but it still misses the point. People do not -- or at least should not -- want tougher sentences because they deter crime or otherwise affect the crime rate. They want tougher sentences because criminals should pay a price for their law-breaking, especially for violent crimes. The popular saying among regular folks who don't read editorials in the large dailies is "you do the crime, you do the time." That isn't incarcerating Paul to stop Peter from robbing a store or beating up someone on the street. It means putting Paul behind bars because that is what Paul deserves. It's called just desserts. That is why the crime rate is not a relevant consideration to what a just punishment is; there is no correlation between how many crimes are committed and what a criminal deserves. To take the Ottawa Citizen argument to an extreme, let's say there was zero crime in Canada and out of the blue a person kills his neighbour. Would that killer deserve just a few days in jail? No, that is ludicrous -- he would still deserve a long time in jail (or death) because that is what murderers deserve.

Editorial writers in many daily papers decry the popular desire for harsher punishments. Perhaps convicted criminals are getting the punishment they deserve, perhaps even they receive sentences that are too harsh. Let's have a debate about what an appropriate punishment is, not irrelevant side issues about deterrence and crime rates. The dividing line will remain the same with most Canadians on the get-tough-on-crime side and editorialists arguing for leniency. But at least it would be an honest debate.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:55 AM

 
Cool things on YouTube

200 years that changed the world (economic development and health)




Top 20 zombies from Dawn of the Dead




H.L. Mencken interviewed (first of eight, the others are here)




Rhinos fighting -- amazing ending




Bullet trajectory analysis


posted by Paul Tuns at 8:51 AM

 
"When to say 'I love you'."

Tyler Cowen from 2007:

1. Anxiousness and a desire to reassure oneself in the face of self-doubt.

2. Irritation at the other person, leading to #1.

3. Desire to manipulate the other person by first making him or her feel compliant and secure.

4. Being overcome by suddenly stronger feelings of love, perhaps because of a Proustian reminder.

5. The simple feeling that too long has passed since having said "I love you," presumably combined with the belief that the words are uttered rarely enough to still have potency. You need to signal you are keeping track of such things.

6. The sex was either very good or very bad, see #1 and #4.

7. One has work or chores to do, and is hoping to create a distraction of some kind.

8. To announce that a conversation is over.

posted by Paul Tuns at 8:34 PM

 
Fox News 'Red Eye' on David Frum



Very funny.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:14 PM

 
PC leadership candidates websites reviewed

By Calgary Grit:

Tim Hudak: "Hudak is the only candidate wearing a tie in his banner photo - read into that what you will."

Randy Hillier: "He has the mandatory web 2.0 links, but hasn't been putting much effort into them..."

Christine Elliott: "It shouldn't be too surprising, but Elliott's dog is given more prominence on her website than her husband, Jim Flaherty - this, despite many references to her being a mother throughout the site."

Frank Klees: no review yet but considering that it took him a long time to get his website up, the wait is appropriate.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:43 AM

 
Neat idea

The Real Life film festival in Sudbury. This concept should be borrowed by other pro-life groups across the country.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:32 AM

 
Liberals want more gag laws

Gerry Nicholls notes that the Ignatieff Liberals want to extend the gag law period to the three months before an election. Nicholls says:

Once you buy into the logic that it's OK to squelch free expression you start heading down a slippery slope; you can always justify further restrictions.

First the gag law was only supposed to be in force during elections; now the Liberals also want to gag Canadians before elections.

Before you know it, it will be illegal for citizens to run political ads at any time.

That is especially true considering that the campaigning by the political parties never stops.

(Where's the National Citizens Coalition? The gag laws used to be their issue.)
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:42 AM

 
Very cool and long overdue

Ecocomics -- economics in comics. For a taste, here's the introduction to "Millionaires = Crazy":

In the world of comic books any individual who has more than 5 million dollars in saving or assets immediately becomes bat-shit insane. It's a strange rule, but it seems that every independently wealthy individual in superhero comics decides that fighting/committing crime is the best way to spend their free time. They ignore possible hobbies like golfing, yachting, and collecting antique cars and go straight into wearing a mask and creating a global organization designed to save/destroy/conquer the world. The examples in comic book fiction are nearly limitless.

Many entries are more involved -- both in the comics and economics.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:34 AM

 
Second best can win

The Toronto Star has an article on PC leadership candidate Frank Klees who is happy with, and positioning himself to be, second choice among Tory supporters. Klees can win with such a strategy because unlike Christine Elliott and Randy Hillier he has great growth potential. All he has to do is stay a close third (or second) on the first ballot.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:24 AM

 
A brief history of the Tories on the current recession

October 2008: during the election Prime Minister Stephen Harper said there was nothing wrong with Canada's economy and drastic steps were unnecessary.

November - December 2008: during the economic statement, a little bit of stimulus was necessary because the economic turmoil affecting the world would have a limited effect on Canada.

January 2009: the federal government announced $90 billion in deficit spending over five years to help fight the recession. Loads of stimulus spending. $34 billion deficit was projected for this year.

May 2009: A $50 billion deficit projected for this year as the economic scenario the 2009 budget was predicated upon turns out to be a little rosy.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:17 AM

 
Pro-life and pro-animal are not common enough common ground

From Mary Eberstadt's "Pro-Animal, Pro-Life," in First Things:

Vegetarians and pro-lifers are strangers to one another for reasons of accident rather than essence, and they also, furthermore, have a natural bond in moral intuitionism that should make them allies.

That may be so, but as Joseph Bottum says (and quoted by Eberstadt):

"Always for me it comes back to this touchstone: Anything that participates in the murder of a child ... is wrong. All the rest is just a working out of the details."

In other words, vegetarianism and pro-life are nothing alike.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:11 AM

 
Good news from the Left coast -- for now

From the California Supreme Court decision today upholding Proposition 8:

The new constitutional provision does not purport to declare the state of the law as it existed when the Marriage Cases decision was rendered, but instead establishes a new substantive state constitutional rule that became effective once Proposition 8 was approved by the voters. Thus, it is not accurate to suggest that Proposition 8 readjudicates the legal issue that was presented and resolved in the Marriage Cases.

To the extent petitioners’ argument rests upon the theory that once a court has construed a provision of the state Constitution in a particular manner, the people may not employ the initiative power to change the provisions of the state Constitution for the future, their contention similarly lacks merit.

The pessimist in me says that California voters will rescind this constitutional amendment upholding the traditional definition of marriage no later than 2012. However, the good news is that the California Supreme Court upheld the law rather than create it.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:16 PM

 
What I'm reading

1. Tommy Douglas: The Road to Jerusalem by Thomas H. McLeod and Ian McLeod.

2. "Pro-animal, pro-life," by Mary Eberstadt in the June First Things.

3. Strauss v. Horton, S168047; Tyler v. State of California, S168066; City and County of San Francisco v. Horton, S168078 -- the California Supreme Court decision upholding Proposition 8.

4. Bob Tarantino has a thoughtful, longish post on whether criminals should be able to profit from their crimes by writing books about their cases. Wonderful demolition of Edward Greenspan's Sun Media column a few weeks back.

5. Robert P. Murphy's review of the two volume Legacy of Ludwig von Mises (edited by Peter J. Boettke and Peter T. Leeson) in the current Journal of the History of Economic Thought.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:40 PM

 
Poop or get off the pot

Bruce Bartlett has a point at NewMajority.com: Colin Powell should stop saying he is a Republican and complaining about the division and begin to lead. I think Powell's vision for the Republican Party is the wrong one, but he needs to do something about the party he thinks is on the wrong course:

[I]f Powell is going to make a point of staying in a party that doesn’t particularly want him — former Vice President Dick Cheney has more or less told him to leave — then Powell has a responsibility to do more than give the occasional television interview criticizing the GOP’s lack of inclusiveness; he needs to engage it on a systematic basis.

I hope Powell fails in remaking the Republican Party into Democrats II, but his endless antagonism against party orthodoxy needs to end: either accept the party in its broad principles or fight like hell to change them. Complaining from the sidelines forever and being the media's favourite Republican for doing so helps no one but Colin Powell -- which might be predictive for whether or not the former chief of staff and secretary of state takes Bartlett's challenge.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:58 PM

 
Libertarians and conservatives

At Overcoming Bias, Robin Hanson wonders about the (failed) liberalterian movement and why libertarians and conservatives are a unnaturally natural alliance. Hanson suggests a plausible reason:

It seems to me that libertarian self-made heroes are more similar to conservative community pillars than to liberal subgroup activists. Self-made men are mostly not made in the bedroom; their glory shows more in their income than in their subgroup identity.

Until gays marrying and killing the unborn is more important than keeping the fruits of one's own labour, the uneasy conservative-libertarian alliance will stand.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:54 PM

 
Stuff

1. The New York Times reports on efforts to resurrect Polaroid technology.

2. Are cartoons real? Christopher Beam at Slate examines the question: "Are Tasmanian devils really as aggressive as the Looney Tunes character?"

3. "6 Historical Villains Who Were Actually OK Guys," notably Antonio Salieri and "Prince" John. The insinuated slur against Salieri that he murdered Mozart was awful. Fun but egregiously incorrect film, that Amadeus.

4. Toronto at Adelaide and Bay at night in photos.

5. Japanese candy (not for the, em, prudish).
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:50 PM

 
Ditto

I've made the same point that the 10-year-old in this conversation made, namely that the learning of "facts" today will be as useful in 20 years as learning to hitch a horse to a wagon was a century ago:

"For the third time. Do your homework."

"I HATE homework. Why should I do it!"

"You need to do your homework so you can get into college and get a good job."

"Oh, Dad," (exasperated), "by the time I'm ready to go to college I'll be able to download the answers directly into my brain in twenty seconds!"

Like it or not, the post-human future will soon be upon us. And to anticipate the argument that downloadable-to-brain data or implanting a microchip with the history of human knowledge is "unnatural" I'd ask one question: where in nature do parents send their children off to school?
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:01 AM

 
Watt on Hillier

Representatives from each of the PC leadership candidates write in the Globe and Mail to assess the race thus far and here is Jaime Watt (a Christine Elliott supporter) on Randy Hillier:

That said, one candidate has already won his race. Beginning with a turn-key base of Ontario Landowners — a largely rural alliance of small “c” conservative/libertarian activists — Randy Hillier has artfully rallied these members using specific, narrowly-targeted policy announcements delivered through online and social media with stunning sophistication. He has solidified his position as the unofficial leader of a very influential minority within the party and ensured his voice will henceforth be not only heard, but taken seriously.

Of course Watt has an ulterior motive (he wants Hillier voters to support Elliott down the ballot), but he is still right, although I wouldn't concede that the conservative wing of the Progressive Conservative Party is a minority.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:20 PM

 
Patrick's List: 15 Great Movie Speeches

Patrick's explanation: These are by no means in order, nor are they the 15 greatest movie speeches of all time. They are simply 15 great movie speeches. The content of the speech may be not be true or accurate, nor do I necessarily endorse the content of the speeches, but I certainly enjoy watching them.

1. Network - "I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore"




2. Network - "There is no democracy"




3. Glengarry Glen Ross - "Always be closing"




4. Patton - "Opening Speech"

General Patton's Opening Speech from



5. Any Given Sunday - "Minutes Speech"




6. 25th Hour - "F all" (not family friendly)




7. Pulp Fiction - "This uncomfortable hunk of metal"




8. Full Metal Jacket - "Drill instructor Speech" (not family friendly)




9. To Kill A Mockingbird - "Courtroom Speech"

To Kill a Mockingbird -



10. The Great Dictator - "Final Speech"




11. Trainspotting - "Choose Life" (not family friendly)




12. Wall Street - "Greed is good"




13. On the Waterfront – "I coulda been a contender"




14. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington - "Filibuster"




15. Usual Suspescts - "Keyser Söze"


posted by Paul Tuns at 9:46 PM

 
Best albums by year (since I was born)

1972: Exile on Main Street -- Rolling Stones
1973: (pronounced 'lĕh-'nérd 'skin-'nérd) -- Lynyrd Skynyrd
1974: Second Helping -- Lynyrd Skynyrd
1975: Physical Graffiti -- Led Zeppelin
1976: One More from the Road (live) -- Lynyrd Skynyrd
1977: Never Mind the Bollocks -- Sex Pistols
1978: Some Girls -- Rolling Stones
1979: Highway to Hell -- AC/DC
1980: Back in Black -- AC/DC
1981: Business as Usual -- Men at Work
1982: 1999 -- Prince
1983: She’s So Unusual -- Cyndi Lauper
1984: Purple Rain -- Prince
1985: Hounds of Love -- Kate Bush
1986: So -- Peter Gabriel
1987: Appetite for Destruction -- Guns N’ Roses
1988: If I Should Fall From the Grace of God -- The Pogues
1989: Full Moon Fever -- Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
1990: Fear of Black Planet -- Public Enemy
1991: Achtung Baby -- U2
1992: Fully Completely -- Tragically Hip
1993: Siamese Dream -- Smashing Pumpkins
1994: Day for Night -- Tragically Hip
1995: Garbage -- Garbage
1996: Anthology 2 -- The Beatles
1997: Up Close and Alone -- Burton Cummings
1998: Devil Without a Cause -- Kid Rock
1999: Enema of the State -- Blink-182
2000: American III: Solitary Man -- Johnny Cash
2002: American IV: The Man Comes Around -- Johnny Cash
2003: Unearthed -- Johnny Cash
2004: How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb -- U2
2005: Wolfmother -- Wolfmother
2006: World Container -- Tragically Hip
2007: Rock N Roll Jesus -- Kid Rock
2008: Black Ice -- AC/DC
2009: We are the Same -- Tragically Hip
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:06 AM

 
Me on TV

Friday afternoon I did a taping of Behind the Story on CTS (which airs Sunday night in Ontario and Alberta at 7 pm). We talked about Conrad Black, Sri Lanka, the Tories' anti-Ignatieff ads, Catholic sex, human rights commissions, scholarships for non-aboriginals in Saskatchewan, Obama and Gitmo, and a whole bunch more.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:57 AM

 
Cool things on YouTube

Mark Steyn on the end of Europe (first of five)




How states got their shapes (more than an hour long but mostly interesting)




12-year-old's five-minute presentation on why abortion is wrong




Gang of Four's "The Hell with Poverty" live




Obama-man/Candy Man from Greg Morton


posted by Paul Tuns at 12:44 AM

 
Human Development Index

Bryan Caplan discusses the problems with the UN's Human Development Index (that Canada use to top in the early to mid-1990s) and concludes:

The ultimate problem with the HDI, though, is lack of ambition. It effectively proclaims an "end of history" where Scandinavia is the pinnacle of human achievement. Admittedly, I've never visited Scandinavia. But when I see it for the first time this August, I'm pretty sure I won't say to myself, "Wow, it can't get any better than this!"

... Scandinavia comes out on top according to the HDI because the HDI is basically a measure of how Scandinavian your country is.

posted by Paul Tuns at 12:36 AM

 
Stuff

1. From the Wall Street Journal: "Light Cars Are Dangerous Cars: And other unintended consequences of strict fuel-economy standards."

2. From the Wichita Eagle: "Man who drove into City Hall gets 10-year sentence." I don't know; shouldn't this type of thing be protected free speech? (Just joking.)

3. Buying ambassadorships. Benjamin Sarlin at the Daily Beast: "Throw a dart at a map of Europe and you’re likely to hit a country whose ambassador’s chief qualification is his or her fundraising prowess for the party in the White House."

4. Time interviews Greg Kot, author of Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music.

5. How to make a handlebar garden. (Via Boing Boing)
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:22 AM

 
Marchman on Florida

Tim Marchman explains Richard Florida's "creative class":

[A]s far as I can tell involves a lot of drunk irresponsible hipsters doing the sorts of things drunk irresponsible hipsters do before having kids and moving to the suburbs and somehow transforming the nature of the American city so that all unsightly poor and old people are kept neatly out of place.

That's pretty funny and accurate. (It's funny because it's true.) The comment is part of a longer post on Gang of Four and Dave Allen's post on "the end of the music album as an organizing principle" (or as Marchman calls it, "the end of the record as a distinct medium") and Florida's "literally incomprehensible" reaction to Allen.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:16 AM

 
Three and out

3. San Francisco Giant fans might be suffering now (19-21, nine games out of first in the NL West), but Marc Hulet at Baseball Analysts says they could have an impressive team in the future. Five words: Matt Cain as fourth starter. And more, all of which assumes most of the prospects hit their ceilings.

2. Spray patterns can help make defensive judgements. Common sense, of course, but Max Marchi at Hardball Times has the data and loads of charts to show why.

1. The New York Yankees bring Chien-Ming Wang back early (from injury) and put the starter in the bullpen. He pitched tonight in a game which saw the Philadelphia Phillies end the Bombers' ten-game winning streak. Wang gave up two runs in three innings, helping to bring his ERA down to 25.00. Whatever problem he had before going to the DL still seems to be bothering him; he allowed six hits and a walk in those three innings, which incredibly also lowers his WHIP.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:43 PM

 
In politics we sweat the small stuff

Ottawa Citizen columnist John Robson on scandals in Canada and the United Kingdom:

Let Stephen Harper or Dalton McGuinty promise no new deficits, then write bad cheques for tens of billions on posterity's account, and the public mind just boggles. We know they lied, played us for rubes and took our cash, but the sums are so huge we can't cope. Eighty-four billion might as well be a googleplex. Whereas in Britain they helped themselves to fancy items we understand and might want. Um, except the moat, which presents its own PR challenges because castles just scream aristocratic luxury. As with the Reform Party getting pretty good traction in the early 1990s over subsidized meals and haircuts for MPs, it's generally the small stuff that raises the biggest stinks...

In Canada, however, politicians don't have to be above suspicion, just above conviction.

posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
Can't we just get along?

Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post on Carrie Prejean's views on gay marriage and whether they matter:

I want the next Supreme Court justice to share my views on the Constitution. I don't care how she looks in a bathing suit, or halfway out of one. Miss California is a different story. Her qualifications, as a general rule, should be up to the people of California. Here in the state of Washington, we expect our beauty-contest winners to be able to split a log and appreciate good coffee. But Miss California's views on gay marriage have nothing to do with her qualifications for the job and shouldn't disqualify her for it.

This is really Liberalism 101, and it's amazing that so many liberals don't get it.

Kingsley goes on to say:

Defeating this discrimination would be a better use of activist energy than demanding discrimination against people who disagree.

So what am I saying? That mindless bigotry always must be tolerated?

What about racism? Should an overt racist be allowed to wear the crown of Miss California, and even to compete for the title of Miss USA? No, not an overt racist, and not an overt homophobe. And no, I can't tell you exactly where to draw the line between bigotry that's intolerable and bigotry that ought to be tolerated, at least to the extent of not ruining someone's life because of a bigoted remark. But that line is somewhere north of Miss California.

Kinsley suggests shrugging off differences, but we are way, way past such common sense.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:54 AM

 
Stuff

1. Incredible story in the Wall Street Journal: "The Stanley Cup Could Use an Editor." It is about the "decades of botched spellings, spacing gaffes, repeated words and the unsightly results of attempts to fix them" that are engraved on the NHL's most important trophy.

2. "How to stop your spouse from over-spending," by Tyler Cowen at CNNMoney.com. I think that his last point, that unless the spending is jeopardizing the household budget, that relaxing about the spouse's purchasing habits is the best course.

3. Has Congress gone to the dogs?

4. Chongqing officials nix China's Love Land sex theme park.

5. The seven biggest things ever stolen including a tank, an oil tanker, a bridge and the Empire State building.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:51 AM

 
PC leadership race

Isn't it cool that Randy Hillier actually believes things. And isn't afraid to speak out on issues. Might not be good politics, but it is a refreshing change to politics as usual.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:55 PM

 
Something to think about

Tim Worstall:

MPs are not not thought either competent enough or trustworthy enough to rule themselves.

So why does anyone at all, let alone the MPs themselves, think they are competent or trustworthy enough to rule us?

posted by Paul Tuns at 9:41 PM

 
Extreme abortion

I found this funny -- not for the easily offended.


posted by Paul Tuns at 9:36 PM

 
WTF with the NCC?

A press release earlier this week noted that:

The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco (NCACT) welcomed another new member to its ranks today with the agreement of the National Citizens Coalition to join the fight against the spread of illegal cigarettes in Canada.

How does "fighting the spread of illegal cigarettes" advance the cause of liberty?

The NCC, the release states:

[I]s Canada’s largest organization that stands for the defence and promotion of free enterprise, free speech and government that is accountable to taxpayers. Founded in 1967, the NCC continues to fight for more freedom through less government.

According to the NCACT website, the problem with contraband cigarettes is that the market is unregulated and that the products aren't taxed. How does that fit in with the pro-freedom agenda of the NCC? In fact, it seems like quite the contradiction.

I understand that there is a cost to society due to the contraband cigarette market and that it is wrong for these cigarettes to end up in the hands of minors (although the "for the children argument" is a favourite tactic of interventionists everywhere). But in no way does this represent the grassroots, small-c conservative base of the National Citizens Coalition. To fight contraband cigarettes the government should lower taxes, but it is hard to find such a call on the NCACT website. That, however, would be an NCC issue. No, the NCACT is about regulation and government intervention under the guise of keeping cigarettes out of the hands of teens and children. I hope that the NCC is being well-funded by the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers’ Council (the tobacco industry) for its support of the NCACT.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:19 AM

 
Stuff

1. How do former vice presidents make a living? (from Mental Floss at WSJ.com).

2. "Click, Change: The Traditional Tube Is Getting Squeezed Out of the Picture," on TV with the television, by Paul Fahri in the Washington Post.

3. The Name that Language quiz. I got 5 out of 10.

4. Dry shampoo is not as good as washing one's hair, although Laura Moser says it does have it's advantages. According to this interesting NPR story, Americans wash their hair about twice as often as Italians or Spanairds but that a century ago, women washed their hair about once a month.

5. The Sartorialist is an interesting fashion blog I found on Rondi's blogroll. I enjoy the On the Steet shots.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:12 AM

 
Oldweek

Noemie Emery doesn't like the new Newsweek, which she says is too much like the old Newsweek -- hopelessly liberal and out of touch:

"Newsweek executives are gambling that advertisers will support the equivalent of shifting from beer to wine," [Washington Post media columnist Howard] Kurtz says helpfully. But it's the same magazine, so readers may need to shift from wine to something more potent. In fact, you have to be drunk to think Newsweek is changing. You have to be drunk to even read Newsweek. I still don't like Newsweek, and I drink wine a whole lot.

posted by Paul Tuns at 7:09 PM

 
I'm with Caplan

Bryan Caplan challenged Arnold Kling to a bet which Kling accepted. Caplain said:

I predict that Republicans will regain control of at least one branch of the federal government at some point between now and January 20, 2017 (two inaugurations from now). So Arnold, how about a $100 bet at even odds?

Kling responds that he will win for a combination of seven reasons, namely:

1. Increasing number of city dwellers.

2. Increasing number of Hispanics.

3. Increasing number of young voters.

4. The growth of government presents challenges to Republicans they are unprepared to meet.

5. A divided party (socons vs. libertarians)

6. The unimpressive GOP leadership.

7. GOP will dig a deeper hole in the Senate in 2010.

These are all true, right now. I'd bet that between now and 2016, things will change, and probably change a lot. It's foolish to make political predictions more than one presidential cycle out. I recall Republicans talking about decades-long ownership of Congress in the early 2000s, with re-apportionment favouring the GOP in 2010. (Grover Norquist wrote about thise numerous times in The American Spectator.) But those predictions were so very long ago and they look very foolish. Obama will eventually disappoint and if he trips up badly the Republicans might win on anti-Obama sentiment. But who knows if that will be the 2010 or 2014 midterms or the 2012 or 2016 presidential election. Who knows?
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:48 PM

 
Ontario PC race

Stephen Taylor has the total amount of money each of the candidates has raised. Christine Elliott has raised twice as much as Tim Hudak and about equal to what her three opponents raised combined. About half of Elliott's funds come from ten donors who gave at least $10,000. More than half of Randy Hillier's money comes from MP Scott Reid and himself. As this information gets teased out a bit by bloggers, reporters and others, people can draw their own conclusions, but it would appear that Hudak is doing the best job raising money among the grassroots and Elliott is the candidate of the rich. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.) Most importantly, as Taylor notes, the meagre fundraising efforts of Klees ($62,517) might translate into a difficulty getting out his vote. Says Taylor, "He’ll need to raise a lot more in order to effectively convert the thousands of memberships that he’s reportedly sold come (leadership) election day."

All of this is very interesting up to a point. Membership sign-ups and donations are important but now its a game of getting one's supporters out and winning over others to be ranked the second choice on the party's preferential ballot. Something I'm thinking about a lot these past few days is growth potential and from what I'm hearing, Elliott has very little of it. Hillier's support is likely to go overwhelmingly toward Klees and the majority of Hudak's people are likely to break the same way if Tim Hudak is dropped before Klees is. It could very well be that Klees could finish third on the first ballot and still win it all.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:59 PM

 
Nationalizing abortion policy, deepening the rancor

Barack Obama's position that we should all just get along contradicts his own recognition that the two sides of the abortion debate are irreconcilable -- at least until one side just gives up. Morally there is no splitting the difference, although a political compromise which seeks to truly reduce abortion is certainly possible. (I say pro-lifers should challenge the president to sit down with them to develop a strategy to reduce the number of abortions, but only a plan that does not include abortifacient or potentially abortifacient drugs from RU-486 to the morning-after pill or oral contraceptives.)

Anyway, Jacob Sullum has some good observations about the divisiveness of the debate and his conclusion sums up why these debates are so politically rancorous in the United States:

When abortion laws throughout the country hinge on a single judicial nominee, it's not a situation conducive to "open hearts" or "fair-minded words."

posted by Paul Tuns at 9:26 AM

 
What I'm reading

1. A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder - How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and on-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman. This is yet another example of a good thesis taken too far, taken to the point of ideological commitment to a counter-intuitive argument that is right in some cases but not nearly to the extent the authors claim. Would have made a great and convincing article, but the point is belaboured in book form.

2. Wild Justice: The moral lives of animals by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce. There is a good review of the book at NewScientist.com.

3. Survival of the Fattest: An Irreverent View of the Senate by Larry Zolf, a wonderful book on Canada's chamber of sober second thought published in 1985.

4. "Preparing Prisoners for Employment: The Power of Small Rewards," a Manhattan Institute report by Anne Morrison Piehl.

5. "No More Mr. Nice Guy: The Supreme Court’s stealth hard-liner," by Jeffrey Toobin in the May 25 New Yorker.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:06 AM

 
Three and out

3. In his annual examination of how much teams gauge fans at HardBallTimes.com, Chris Jaffe finds that the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays are the worst offenders. They are the only teams to add an extra $10 or more to the price of the lowest-end tickets.

2. My guess is that come mid-Summer, Tom Verducci will look stupid for writing this SI.com column about how the Texas Rangers are "for real": their starting and relief pitching are doing quite well, the defense is making their pitching look good, their offense is excellent (always is, although the numbers are inflated because they play home games at the Ballpark in Arlington) and they are the front-runner to get former Milwaukee ace Ben Sheets when he finally is healthy. All that is true today. I wouldn't bet on it being true 60 games from now.

1. Tim Marchman muses about how to replace injured New York Mets 1B Carlos Delgado, who will be out until sometime this summer. Marchman likes Aubrey Huff of the Baltimore Orioles, who can play all four corner positions, but he wouldn't come cheap. Others are prone to injury (Nick Johnson of the Washington Nationals) or probably not up for grabs (Adam LaRoche of the Pittsburgh Pirates). That might leave the perfectly useful, four corner type, Chad Tracy of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who might come cheap. (He is not a regular for the D-backs, so their asking price won't be that great.) In the highly competitive National League East, Mets GM Omar Minaya should make such a move, even if it is to rent a player until Delgado gets back. It probably won't happen because teams are loathe to acquire a player to replace another who is injured when the latter is likely to be out for a "mere" two months. I don't get that. Teams trade for would-be free agents at the July 31 trading deadline to get two months of service out of a player. Why not improve a team for two months in May and June and use the acquired player as a significant bench upgrade for the final three months? It makes a lot of sense but that isn't the way things are normally done, so it won't be this time. Baseball can be a frustratingly conservative sport.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:52 AM

 
Four and out (Jon Gruden joining MNF edition)

4. Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden will join ESPN's Monday Night Football, replacing Tony Kornheiser. I hate this for a bunch of reasons, which surprises me because Kornheiser was comprehensively awful as an on-air analyst. I don't find Gruden that insightful and I hate the three-person broadcasting team format. More about both in points 2&3.

3. SI.com's Phil Taylor says that the MNF franchise should cease looking for the magic threesome. I totally concur, but for slightly different reasons. It is not just that the Howard Cosell-led trio can't be replicated but that generally in sports three commentators is a crowd. Too often, and especially in baseball and football, discussion veers too far off what is happening on the field when the third man is added to the booth. The talk turns to (at best) speculation about other things in the sport and (at worst) subjects that have nothing or little to do with sports at all. Two people to a booth -- and that's all. Getting rid of Kornheiser was addition by subtraction. Why add Gruden?

2. Kissing Suzy Kolber -- a football blog that is not a family/office friendly -- thinks that EPSN did the almost-impossible: replaced Tony Kornheiser with someone who will be almost as bad. KSK says Jon Gruden "will most assuredly be stilted and awful, weighing down the broadcast with even more platitudes and cliches." What struck me about watching Gruden's almost universally praised Draft Day analysis was how uncritical is was: convention wisdom, not very deep, pablum for the football fan. That makes sense on the NFL Network -- the TV channel doesn't want to upset the suits in the biz. But ESPN? They could do better than safely conventional. In his first interview with ESPN after the announcement he said that any team thinking about signing former QB Michael Vick will talk about it among their brain trust. And regarding Brett Favre: "I'm excited to follow this situation." Wow. That's deep. And invaluable.

1. I'm just saying that Ron Jaworski, one of Gruden's new broadcast booth mates, is probably a better quarterback today, nearly two decades after retiring, than any QB Gruden ever developed as a coach.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:22 AM

 
Lawfare conference

Today, in Washington, there was a one-day Islamist lawfare conference co-hosted by the Legal Project, Federalist Society, the Center for National Security Law, and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. Philip Klein has a post on this The American Spectator's blog about the conference. This is notable:

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal argued that the free speech protections in the U.S. are strong enough that American authors shouldn't have anything to fear.

To learn more about lawfare, read Brooke Goldstein's long essay on the topic at the Henry Jackson Society website, in which he notes that Canada's experience with the human rights commission industry provides an important lesson for Americans. Also, read Kathy Shaidle's article on lawfare in her Islam in America series for Right Side News.

And, finally, Martin Solomon notes that CAIR objected to the lawfare conference -- surprise, surprise.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:29 PM

 
Stuff

1. Human landscapes from above -- incredible photos.

2. From Forbes Traveller: Asia's most visited tourist sites.

3. Donald Trump has filed a $5 billion suit against a journalist because said journalist claimed that Trump is not a billionaire.

4. The Daily Telegraph has huge stone faces.

5. Slate on the Clios, the advertising industry's awards.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:34 PM

 
Fighting protectionism with protectionism?

Andrew Roth of the Club for Growth seems to like this story about Halton Hills, Ont., unanimously passing a resolution "that would have the Toronto-area municipality discriminate against any country that discriminates against Canada." It is an attempt to fight the recession-fighting Buy American provisions in the U.S. stimulus package. There will be a vote on a similar resolution at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The paper and Roth like the "mouse that roared" angle, but such pandering to populist interests and anti-Americanism is no way to promote free trade.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:45 PM

 
Footing the bill for the prostitutes

Stephen Taylor seems to have found evidence that suggests the federal government, through the Status of Women Canada, is footing the bill for the B.C. hookers who are getting media training to help them deal with reporters during next year's Winter Olympics.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:21 PM

 
Ponnuru on Obama's abortion rhetoric

Ramesh Ponnuru at WashingtonPost.com:

Pro-lifers often get annoyed when they see politicians with hard-line records in favor of legal and subsidized abortion talk, as Obama did, about how much he wants to reduce abortion. But that type of rhetoric, however little follow-through it generates, is itself a concession to the moral and political force of the pro-life case. The more politicians who favor unrestricted, subsidized abortion talk about what a tragedy it is, the more they undermine their own premises. If it's such a terrible thing, why fund it? Why not allow states to try different methods of discouraging it, including restrictions?

Obama has handled the politics of abortion deftly. He is doing the best he can from a position of weakness.

posted by Paul Tuns at 10:15 AM

 
The Politic contest

Enter submissions for the most unconservative thing the Harper Conservatives have done at The Politic.

(HT: Wonder Woman)
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:10 PM

 
Quotidian

"In its boundless ambition, the Left understands that the character of a people can be transformed: British, Canadian, and European elections are now about which party can deliver 'better services,' as if the nation is a hotel and the government could use some spritelier bellhops."

-- Mark Steyn, "Intrusion of Reality," at NRO (May 2)
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:08 PM

 
Legalizing prostitution

I'm headed to full-fledged libertarianism, apparently. This from Free Exchange (about removing 'adult services' on Craigslist) sounded pretty reasonable to me:

Sex workers who advertise on Craigslist tend to be on the lower end of the industry. Entry costs are small; ads on the site cost only $10 to place and $5 to renew. The presence of the internet has transformed the market for independent providers, but did not create it. But by reaching a larger pool of clients, there also is increased risk.

Higher-end prostitutes often advertise on web sites devoted to escort services. Entry costs are higher; a prominent ad in a VIP section costs more than $300. Such providers also have an elaborate screening mechanism (it can take several days to book if you’re a new client). High-end prostitutes often provide more elaborate services and long-term business relationships, so their clients are more willing to endure the screening.

Lower-end providers are more vulnerable because they often do not have the same means of screening and protection. Aspects of Craigslist provided that service for them; if that vanishes they will find other, less safe, alternatives. The best way to protect them would be to legalise and regulate the industry. That would be far more effective than forcing the work further into the shadows.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:06 PM

 
Stuff

1. The world's shark infested beaches -- and North America's top shark attack beaches. (Both from Forbes Traveller.) Some pretty neat photos.

2. Explaining the difference between a serial killer and a mass murderer.

3. Listverse has 10 cases of liberal hypocrisy and 10 cases of conservative hypocrisy.

4. In a discussion with Bill Simmons at ESPN.com, Malcolm Gladwell says that the NBA is wrong to employ a losers draft first amateur draft. Tom Ziller at FanHouse points out this does not quite jive with Gladwell's view that more teams should employ the full-court press.

5. Margot Livesey buys a gun -- and likes it.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:02 PM

 
Newsweek re-invents itself

Newsweek editor John Meacham explains -- or, depending on your take, justifies the magazine's existence:

We think what we do is important, but in the end what matters more is whether you think so, and in so thinking, whether you find that our work repays the investment of your time. And so the magazine you are holding now—the first issue of a reinvented and rethought NEWSWEEK—represents our best effort to bring you original reporting, provocative (but not partisan) arguments and unique voices. We know you know what the news is. We are not pretending to be your guide through the chaos of the Information Age. If you are like us, you do not need, or want, a single such Sherpa. What we can offer you is the benefit of careful work discovering new facts and prompting unexpected thought.

Counterintuitively, perhaps, the weekly cycle is a promising one in a world running at a digital pace. The Internet does a good job of playing the role long filled by newspapers, delivering headlines, opinions and instant analysis. Many newspapers have long been forced into a traditional newsmagazine model, with longer-form reporting and more big-picture thinking, but they still have to do it every day, and there is only so much wisdom one can summon in a few hours. As we see it, NEWSWEEK's role is to bring you as intellectually satisfying and as visually rich an experience as the great monthlies of old did, whether it was Harold Hayes's Esquire or Willie Morris's Harper's, but on a weekly basis.

There will, for the most part, be two kinds of stories in the new NEWSWEEK. The first is the reported narrative—a piece, grounded in original observation and freshly discovered fact, that illuminates the important and the interesting. The second is the argued essay—a piece, grounded in reason and supported by evidence, that makes the case for something.

What is displaced by these categories? The chief casualty is the straightforward news piece and news written with a few (hard-won, to be sure) new details that does not move us significantly past what we already know. Will we cover breaking news? Yes, we will, but with a rigorous standard in mind: Are we truly adding to the conversation? When violence erupts in the Middle East, are we saying something original about it? Are our photographs and design values exceptional? If the answers are yes, then we are in business.

This first issue of the reinvented NEWSWEEK is, we hope, a model of the form. We have rethought the structure of the magazine, and there are now only four sections: SCOPE (for short-form pieces, including Conventional Wisdom and the rechristened Indignity Index); THE TAKE (our columnists); -FEATURES (longer-form narratives and essays); and CULTURE. The magazine will close with a graphic feature titled Back Story, a visual dissection or explanation of an important issue or phenomenon that will satisfy one's curiosity or pique interest.

Give 'em an A for effort; it's too early too tell about how well this is executed.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:36 AM

 
Patrick's weekend list

Patrick Tuns' list of eight favourite characters from The Wire

Patrick's caveat: Below is a list of eight of my favourite characters from The Wire, one of the greatest television shows of all time. Before I get to the list I want to explain the exclusion of three characters who nonetheless deserve special recognition. Thomas 'Herc' Hauk and Ellis Carver are two immensely funny and entertaining characters, but I do not enjoy them on their own as stand alone characters. For the time they are together on screen they would easily rank on this list. However, on their own, as individual characters, they do not. The same goes for Detective William 'Bunk' Moreland, who is a great character, but when I enjoy him the most is in his conversations with McNulty (one of my least favourite characters in the show, if not television history). Bunk is a great character, but without him as a character compliment (and in later seasons character foil) to McNulty he does not stand alone.

8. City editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes: Really there are characters that I find more entertaining, have better lines, and was more attached to than Augustus Haynes. So why does he make it on the list while others do not? One word: realism. The Wire is one of the grittiest, pessimistic, and realistic shows of all time and Augustus Haynes was the vehicle by which series creator David Simon could introduce the media storyline that balanced out the McNulty-saturated Season 5. The issues facing the Baltimore Sun in the show, which Haynes is editor of, served as great material for the show. Haynes’ dialog is as true to journalists as the issues he faces. The realism and excellent story lines the character brings to the show was really the driving force for me to be enthusiastic about the fifth season of the show.

7. Preston "Bodie" Broadus: It does not take one much time to realize that The Wire kills off people with the same frequency of the black plague, and once this realization is reached you know the street punk Bodie is going to get capped somewhere along the way. Despite this obvious realization I found myself growing attached to what is essentially a static character in the series. Sure he becomes a little less thuggish but he is effectively the same throughout the show. So what is the appeal? For one thing, J.D. Williams does a great job playing him. More importantly, Bodie is a character who has chosen his path in life and will not change. He is stubborn and will fight to defend what is his. Why is this a draw? It is watching this lousy punk work to build something for himself on some sleazy corner in West Baltimore and care about it enough to defend with his life. Bodie never achieved as much as Tony Montana, he was never as rich or successful, but if one watches his rise and fall over the course of the show one can clearly see the similarities between these two men fighting to create and maintain something to call their own, Tony Montana wanted the world and Bodie wanted his corner.

6. Joe "Proposition Joe" Stewart: What Stringer Bell is for the West Side Proposition Joe is for the West Side. Enough said.

5. Howard “Bunny” Colvin: The man who introduces one of the most interesting plot lines in the show (Hamsterdam) deserves to be on the list simply for being a vehicle to allow the plot line to occur. He is also used as a vehicle for the authors to provide suggestions on how to approach problems facing the American public school system. Always the character to provide interesting alternative approaches to issues and create intriguing new story lines that few other entertainment mediums would dare attempt to touch.

4. Frank Sobotka: It is the first episode of Season Two and the viewer is introduced to the head of the Dockworkers Union, Frank Sobotka. Within three episodes of the season I found myself empathizing with the head of a union, something I never thought I would find myself doing. The complexity and portrayal of this noble character is so deep that he deserves a spot on this list. Sobotka is no petty corrupt union boss, he is a real man with real principals that he truly believes in and wants to fight for. He does not fully understand how the world works and fears change but he does know what is right and will defend it. A true man of honour.

3. Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski: Easily one of the most dynamic characters in the show. The man who I could not stand in Season One for pistol-whipping a kid in the face, I immensely enjoyed as a grade school teacher in Season Four. Prez is just an all-around interesting character; he is uncannily intelligent and an asset as both a officer of the law and a teacher. He learned how to make learning attractive to students without making it seem like a cheesy after-school special. Without Prez, it would have been impossible to turn something as everyday as the public school system into the driving force of the best season of the entire series.

2. Russell "Stringer" Bell: The man who ran the Barksdale drug organization like a legitimate business in Season Three. His pragmatic approach to the drug trade minimized violence and maximized profits in both legitimate and illegitimate business ventures. He always proved entertaining to watch by making the drug trade on Baltimore’s West side into a well-oiled money making machine. He is a joy to watch for the same reason one watches the Indianapolis Colts play: they play the game really well.

1. Omar Little: What do Barak Obama and I have in common? Answer: We both agree that Omar Little is one of the greatest television characters of all time. What is it that makes his character so great. The following exchange between him and Maurice Levy (a lawyer in the show) explains his character and demonstrates the always entertaining persona of the character:

Maury Levy: 'You are amoral, are you not? You are feeding off the violence and the despair of the drug trade. You are stealing from those who themselves are stealing the lifeblood from our city. You are a parasite who leeches off...'
Omar Little: 'Just like you, man.'
Levy: '...the culture of drugs. Excuse me? What?'
Omar: 'I got the shotgun, you got the briefcase. It's all in the game though, right?'

posted by Paul Tuns at 11:15 PM

 
Great headline and subhead

From TNR.com: "Battle of the Homocons: Gay Republicans can't get along--both of them." Political bitch-slapping.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:57 PM

 
Three and out

3. Jason Kottke notes: "Ticket prices at the new Yankee Stadium are so high that if a New Yorker wants to watch a Mariners/Yankees game from the best seats, it would be a lot cheaper to fly to Seattle, stay in a nice hotel, eat fancy dinners, and see two games."

2. Eric SanInocencio at Baseball Daily Digest makes an interesting observation about where baseball players come from (hint: everywhere): "If you take a quick glance at any team’s board on draft day, you’ll learn that great baseball players can come from all ends of the globe. Unlike football and basketball, the National Pastime often sees it stars come from rural areas and smaller schools within the college landscape. While major universities have their fair share of major leaguers, so do the smaller ones, and that’s the case in every state of the union."

1. Over time, a team should win about the same percentage of one-run games as they do overall, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. Often it is ascribed to a deficient bullpen or lack of character if a team loses a disproportionate percentage of its one-run games, clutch hitting or superior managing/strategy if they win a disproportionate amount. (Usually it is just good or bad luck.) Last year, the Atlanta Braves were 11-30 in one-run games -- and 61-60 in other games. This year, it's the Colorado Rockies who are 14-21 overall but 1-8 in one-run games. Were it not for the one-run games, the Rox would be a 500 team. The Rockies, who have scored more runs than they've allowed (making for an expected win-loss record of 18-17), should correct this by the end of the season, but if they don't they'll be scraping the bottom of the NL West barrel.
posted by Paul Tuns at 3:48 PM

 
Probably true of most economic plans, but more so of Obama's

Greg Mankiw:

It is becoming increasingly clear that the long-term fiscal strategy at the White House is based on large doses of wishful thinking.

posted by Paul Tuns at 3:36 PM

 
Ontario PC leadership race

Stephen Taylor reports the membership numbers for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party and they sound roughly the same as what I'm hearing. Frank Klees has signed up the most (9000), followed by Christine Elliott (8000), Tim Hudak (7000) and trailing far behind is Randy Hillier (3100). There are about 15,000 memberships that are unattributed -- bought through the party rather than a candidate -- and there is some indication that many of those are lifelong Tories (who could break in equal numbers for Harrisite Hudak and Red Tory Elliott) and Hudak and Klees supporters who signed up at the party website rather than through the candidate. If the numbers are right, Hillier is out of it, but otherwise it is a surprisingly close three-way race. It is surprising because Hudak was considered the clear front-runner and Klees was seen as yesterday's man.

So what happened? Klees has been publicly supported by Campaign Life Coalition and Charles McVety of the Canada Christian College and Canada Family Action Coalition and there are a lot of social conservatives in the provincial party; they might be decisive. Elliott, the wife of the federal finance minister, is reported to have support from a across the province and has tapped into her own business connections and taken advantage of her husband's previous two Ontario PC leadership bids. Hudak has done about what the campaign expected they would do at this stage and the Hillier campaign was ideas-driven lacking in membership drive, fundraising and events planning.

These numbers come on the heals of reports about the candidates' fundraising, in which Elliott raised more money than all the other candidates combined and twice as much as the second best fundraiser (Randy Hillier on the strength of a single large donation) -- at least in donations of over $100 which must be reported to Elections Ontario. It could be that Hillier, Klees and Hudak are better at getting smaller donations of $10, $25 and $50 but you need a lot of those to make up for the huge deficit the men have at this time. "Elliott's donor list," CTV reported, "included four executives and directors of wealth management company Legacy Private Trust, who contributed $10,000 each." She has raised $186,100 compared to $91,809 for Hillier. Hillier's top donor seems to be federal MP Scott Reid who gave his provincial colleague -- they represent the same riding -- $25,000. My guess is that Hudak will have had plenty of success raising smaller amounts because of his superior province-wide organization -- and his campaign claims to have raised more than $200,000 in total, as does the Hillier campaign.

My prediction right now is that Hudak can probably still eke out a first-ballot lead over Elliott but that the bulk of Hillier's support will break for Klees once the preferential ballot takes effect in the second and later rounds of voting. Then it is anyone's game. There is also a riding point system that could skew results, rewarding those who signed up fewer members but over a larger number of ridings. Klees is reported to be strong north of Toronto, but weak elsewhere. If true, he will have 'wasted votes' that could cost him. There have been almost no reports of how well the candidates have done in the north, which could break for Hillier and reward his rural message appeal (gun rights, the bear hunt and property rights). Considering the apparent closeness of the race, the four leadership debates might mean more than they usually do, especially in determining second and third place votes on the preferential ballot.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:27 AM

 
Will on greed

George F. Will has an excellent column on greed. Two important points: he facetiously notes that our journalistic superiors insist that greed occurs in cycles congruent with which party controls the White House and that contrary to conventional wisdom free markets punish greed.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:13 AM

 
Same-sex marriage is the new abortion

As a US Supreme Court litmus test. Legally and politically SSM is a dog's breakfast, in part because of the politicians (the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act) and courts (deciding the issue rather than allowing state legislatures define marriage), not to mention the inconsistency of some leaders (Barack Obama personally opposes gay marriage but supports 'equal rights' for homosexuals). But the courts having hijacked ensures that potential Supreme Court justices will be asked about their views on the issue and role of the courts in settling the issue. No wonder, as the Washington Post reports, socons have made the definition of marriage a priority over abortion.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:09 AM

 
Stuff

1. Top 10 movie misquotes. And here is 100 movies quotes in 200 seconds (although they do abbreviate a number of quotes).

2. Love Land, China's first sex theme park, is to open soon in Chongqing.

3. "Six evil henchmen who sucked at their job," from Cracked.com. I don't agree with their number one pick.

4. What women want in a man at 21, 32, 43, 54, 65 and 76.

5. The Daily Telegraph reports that many women buy clothes that are too small as an incentive to lose weight. The paper doesn't report whether this is a successful motivation, but it does report there are approximately 24 million articles of clothing hanging unused in Britain's closets.

6. Five Feet of Fury on Twitter. And FFF on the $5 Twitter Trick. I'm not yet sold on Twitter, but for those that need a bump off the fence, these posts could do it.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:51 AM

 
Sentences worth pondering

Tyler Cowen:

I'd like people to be smarter, more thoughtful, more tolerant, and more loving of liberty, yet in ways which do not drain away the diversity of the United States, which I feel is the best available foundation to build upon.

That's from post about seasteading (that includes some criticism from a person who is not generally against the idea).
posted by Paul Tuns at 4:41 PM

 
Imagine what the US could do if they allowed offshore drilling

Craig Newmark:

Norway discovers the secret of macroeconomic success!
Norway has a GDP/person of about $52,000.

It's secret? Oil. Lots and lots of oil. (And, to their credit, an apparent willingness to save.)

In our country we call it "Alaska". (Most recent GDP/person I could find, 2007: $44,807 in year 2000 dollars.)

Links at Newmark's Door.
posted by Paul Tuns at 4:35 PM

 
Hudak joins Hillier in calling for OHRC to be scrapped

Randy Hillier called for scrapping the Ontario Human Rights Commission on the day he launched his campaign for the Ontario PC leadership. Yesterday, another contender, Tim Hudak echoed the call. This is very good. Now let's hope that regardless of what happens in the leadership vote, some Tories raise the issue at Queen's Park.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:55 AM

 
Mrozek interviews Ezra

Over at ProWomanProLife, Andrea Mrozek interviews anti-human rights commission crusader Ezra Levant on free speech issues affecting the abortion debate.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:41 PM

 
Three and out

3. At SI.com, Tim Marchman says that some players are demonstrating that they are not the players they once were. Among them are David Ortiz, Brian Giles, Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter. Jeter, at least, has not experienced the sudden collapse that the others have, suffering, instead, the gradual regression a player goes through as he enters his mid-30s. Marchman is being a little dishonest when noting that his 273 batting average is 42 points below his career average. Last year Jeter hit 300, 43 points below his 2006 batting average. In fact, his batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage have been dropped for three consecutive seasons.

2. At Foxsports.com, Ken Rosenthal makes the silly argument that replacing DH David Ortiz won't be that hard for the Boston Red Sox because despite not hitting a homerun yet this season, he is not that much below the average DH performance. That quite misses the point: the BoSox weren't counting on average DH numbers from Big Pappi. For once, Rosenthal hints at the idea of replacement level and this time he misses the mark by a wide margin.

1. A few baseball writers at the Toronto papers are calling the series between the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays the most important series of the season and tonight's game perhaps the game of the year -- or a "big deal" or "not just another game." To the extent that a team can miss the playoffs by a game, every series and every game is important. To the extent that a playoff spot can be missed by two games, every series and every game between division rivals can be critical. This series is as important as any other intradivisional game at the 35 game mark. Unless, of course, there is something special about the Yankees coming to town and this is the pundit class' way to admitting that without admitting it.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:56 PM

 
Stuff

1. Alcohol consumption map at Carpe Diem.

2. Cushions for Japanese men to kneel while they pee.

3. Wired has six of America's 'maddest' scientists. Remember lots of things we know to be true today were once considered laughable. We scoff at too many things. That said, studying UFOs is a little out there.

4. Giulio Quaggiotto at the World Bank's Private Sector Development blog suggests 13 ways to use social media to advance the cause of development.

5. Gerry Nicholls on BC's single-transferable vote referendum.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:00 AM

 
Loud sex is a crime in England

Brendan O'Neill at Reason.com:

At the end of April, Caroline Cartwright, a 48-year-old housewife from Wearside in the north east of England, was remanded in custody for having "excessively noisy sex." The cops took her in after neighbors complained of hearing her "shouting and groaning" and her "bed banging against the wall of her home." Cartwright has, quite reasonably, defended her inalienable right to be a howler: "I can't stop making noise during sex. It's unnatural to not make any noises and I don't think that I am particularly loud."

Pleasurable groaning and bed-banging are common noises in crowded towns and cities across the civilized world. Most of us deal with them by sticking a CD in the stereo. Those who complain are normally told to stop being prudish or to have a discreet chat with the creators of the offending sex sounds. So how did Cartwright's expressions of noisy joy become a police case, which later this month will be ruled on at Newcastle Crown Court, one of the biggest courts in the north of England?

Because, unbelievably, Cartwright had previously been served with an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) — a civil order that is used to control the minutiae of British people's behaviour—that forbade her from making "excessive noise during sex" anywhere in England.

That's right, going even further than Orwell's imagined authoritarian hellhole, where at least there was a wood or two where people could indulge their sexual impulses, the local authorities in Wearside made all of England a no-go zone for Cartwright's noisy shenanigans. If she wanted to howl with abandon, she would have to nip over the border to Scotland or maybe catch a ferry to France. It was because she breached the conditions of her Anti-Social Behaviour Order, the civil ruling about how much noise she can make while making love in England, that Cartwright was arrested.

I've noted that liberal statists (and conservative statists, too) are upset whenever there is someone somewhere enjoying themselves, but I never thought it would go this far.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:57 AM

 
Tamil protests in Toronto resonate at Turtle Bay?

Toronto Star columnist Royson James says that were it not for the Tamil demonstration in Toronto on Sunday, the United Nations would never have condemned the weekend violence in Sri Lanka. I find that unlikely. But if that is true -- that a thousand Tamils blocking the Gardner Expressway can capture the attention of those at the UN but not the actual slaughter of hundreds, if not thousands of people in south Asia -- then that is not a defense of the protests but the most damning commentary on the United Nations I have ever seen.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:54 AM

 
Fact of the day

Government spending now exceeds 40% of the economy, up from a third in 2000 and at its highest level since the end of World War II. Great going presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

(HT: Club for Growth)
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:04 PM

 
Quotidian

"Today the tendency to circumscribe and confine and limit, to determine the range of what may be asked and what may not, to what may be believed and what may not, is no longer a distinguishing mark of the old ‘reactionaries.’ On the contrary, it comes as powerfully from the heirs of the radicals, rationalists, ‘progressives’ of the nineteenth century as from the descendants of their enemies. There is a persecution not only of science, but by science or at least in its name..."

-- Isaiah Berlin, quoted in the May 2009 Econ Journal Watch.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:38 PM

 
Three and out

3. The mantra here for the first month or so is "sample size". So the Toronto Blue Jays are an impressive 22-12 but are 2-2 in their past four games, compared to 20-10 over their first 30. Which one is more meaningful? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the Jays play 500 ball over the rest of the season, especially with the first of their 48 games against the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays starting this week.

2. Kansas City Royals phenom Zack Greinke had his first loss of the season on Saturday. He threw eight innings against the Los Angeles Angels, giving up one run, four hits, no walks and striking out five. His record on the season goes to 6-1 and his ERA is bumped up to 0.51. Angels starter Joe Saunders threw a complete game shutout, allowing five hits and one walk while striking out six.

1. Rob Neyer on Selena Roberts' new book A-rod: The Many Lives Of Alex Rodriguez: "Alex Rodriguez does seem to be an odd person, and thus perhaps interesting, so it's not all that hard to imagine an interesting book about him. But it's not yet the time to write that book, and it's highly unlikely that Selena Roberts is the person to write it." Neyer prefers Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball's Most Enigmatic Slugger by Jean Rhodes et al.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:30 PM

 
Stuff

1. Tyler Cowen suggests standard dishes at ethnic restaurants by which to judge the eatery. The discussion in the comments section is also worth reading, especially considering Cowen's oversight on how to judge an Italian restaurant.

2. New Scientist has 13 things that don't make sense.

3. Tom Scocca defends the tabloids -- the treasure that comes with the trash -- in the Washington Post.

4. Hubby and agent Marty Ingels wants Shirley Jones to pose nude at the age of 75.

5. Em, the Democratic Blue Obama Dildo and the Presidential Gold Obama Dildo. As the promo says, "You Love Your Candidate -- Let Him Love You Back!" (HT: Five Feet of Fury)

6. Mercer Survey of Quality of Living rates top 50 cities in the world. Strong Germanophilia going on: seven of top nine cities are in Austria, Germany or Switzerland. Three of top 16 and four of top 22 are Canadian; no U.S. city cracks the top 28.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:54 PM

 
Terrorists are entering Iraq through Syria again

WaPo has the story.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:24 PM

 
Frum on Sykes and Limbaugh

No, not that, you with a dirty mind. David Frum comments on comedienne Wanda Sykes attack on Rush Limbaugh and what it really means:

But it's not about Sykes. What draws gasps is not the comedian's description of Rush Limbaugh as a traitor, wishing him dead, etc. What draws gasps is the president's laughter and pleasure in these words.

As experienced a television performer as the president knows that there will be a reaction shot after jokes like these. Suppose he had frowned and shook his head? That would have done more to cement his reputation as a post-partisan uniter than anything he has done to date. Instead, his expression and the motions of his body betrayed his real feelings - and betrayed his promises.

And just as it's not about Sykes, it's not about Rush. That Rush Limbaugh has said harsh things about the president is no excuse for either Sykes or the president. Barack Obama is president in large part because he persuaded Americans that he stood above petty name-calling. Now we see that he may not do the name-calling -but he's sure not above it.

President Obama diminished himself. Very possibly he did something even worse and more self-damaging: very possibly, he revealed himself.

All this might be true were it someone other than Barack Obama, but it won't stick to the teflon president. At least, not yet.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:20 PM

 
Stuff

1. New Scientist has eight ways to boost your creativity.

2. The Sun reports on a Star Wars wedding ("Jedi do"), providing evidence that a picture is worth a thousand words. Relatedly geeky, a Star Trek-theme decorated apartment. Cue joke about where no woman has gone before.

3. Pimpthatsnack in which people make over-sized snacks. Check out the huge Kit Kat bar someone made. That might be good for people who are lousy at math.

4. The Daily Telegraph explores whether organic food is too posh.

5. Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education in January, Thomas H. Benton say do not get a Ph.D. in the humanities.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:21 AM

 
Four and down

4. Terence Moore at FanHouse is absolutely correct to say that if Brett Favre wants to play and somebody (the Minnesota Vikings) want him, he has every right to play. The real questions are 1) is he better than the alternatives, or so much better that he is worth the extra cost, and 2) whether he hurts his reputation by playing when he seems to be on the verge of serious decline and whether that matters. The first question must be answered by any team that wants him and the second by Favre. I would suggest that the answers are yes, no, yes, and yes.

3. Rick Stoppe at ColdHardFootballFacts says that Favre wants to play to marginally increase his passing yards and touchdown totals, making it a little more likely they'll outlast the career of Peyton Manning or any other QB that might challenge his records. Stoppe says that Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice both played to pad their stats and Favre seems likes the kind of guy who would do the same thing. That is cynical, but probably true. And sad.

2. At SI.com, Don Banks has six teams that didn't make the playoffs in the 2008 season that will make it in the 2009 season. I agree on the New England Patriots, am tempted to agree about the San Francisco 49ers, and possibly the Houston Texans, but it is too early to tell about the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. (Actually, its too early to tell about any team quite yet, but Banks needs something to write about in May.) And he's nuts for thinking the Buffalo Bills are an improved enough team to win a wild card spot in the AFC. My early pick for surprise playoff team is the Cincinnati Bengals, who were 4-11-1.

1. In the same column, Banks predicts six teams that made the playoffs last year that won't in the upcoming season. I said on the eve of the Miami Dolphins making the playoffs this year that they won't do it again next, in part on strength of schedule alone, never mind some regression to the mean on some players who over-performed. I wouldn't bet against the Baltimore Ravens and I think he's doubly nuts for writing off the Indianapolis Colts -- at least writing them off in May. I want to see what their players are like in training camp. I see the logic in picking the Atlanta Falcons (like the Ravens, can a sophomore QB repeat a near magical rookie season), but I'd wait to pass judgement; they've picked up some new targets for Matt Ryan, especially TE Tony Gonzalez. Banks displays a superstition common among sports writers when he says the Carolina "Panthers have never had consecutive winning seasons or playoff berths" in their 14 year history. Such a pattern must be determinative. And I think that it is too soon to write off the Arizona Cardinals although they are unlikely to score as many points (426), go a perfect 6-0 within the division or get away with actually giving up more points than they scored. But they are still a good team that was minutes away from winning the Super Bowl in January after a great run against great teams in the playoffs. That should count for something.
posted by Paul Tuns at 4:44 PM

 
More reader questions

Part of a continuing series where I answer your questions that are mostly unrelated to regular posts. If you have anything you want to ask, send it to paul_tuns[at]yahoo.com. Today, I'll start with two music questions.

Q: You have recently linked to both Hole and Handel. How can you listen to Hole and Handel?

Easy. I like both. I have given this type of question a lot of thought and I think I think musical tastes are unanalyzable (not a word but you know what I mean).

Q: Do you have a favourite opera?

No. I'm not opposed to opera, it's just I don't listen to it enough.

Q: If you could have four dinner guests, anyone from history, who would you pick?

Great question. It's the kind of parlour game that my friends and I used to play in university (too often). I've given this a some thought and I changed my mind often depending on the mood I'm in: do I want to talk history or baseball, delve into problems of political philosophy or religious truth? Right now I'm in the mood for a discussion of ethics, so I'm going with Marcus Aurelius, Jesus Christ, Adam Smith, and Ayn Rand. That said, I think getting Jesus and Johnny Cash around the table would be pretty interesting.

Q: You oppose euthanasia but do you think that if you were terminally ill or permanently disabled, that you would want to seek the assistance of a physician to help commit suicide will cross your mind?

I know it would cross my mind, but that doesn't make it right nor does it affect my opinion on this issue.

Q: Who were your childhood heroes and who are your heroes today?

Until I was five or six, I looked up to my uncle Tony who worked in a factory. There was something manly about working in a factory, as opposed to what my parents did (teach). Then it was on to sports heroes: Dennis Savard (hockey) and Don Mattingly, Ozzie Smith and Cal Ripken (baseball). Since June 5, 1989, it has been Tank Man/the Unknown Rebel.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:45 AM

 
No more talks with the Taliban

Writing in the New York Times, Hassina Sherjan, director of Aid Afghanistan for Education, explains why the Western government idea about talking to the Taliban is unwise. Sherjan says:

What can be the purpose of talks with the Taliban? These men deprive women of their rights, throw acid in the faces of schoolgirls, reject religious freedom and oppose constitutional democracy. They also threaten to kill any Afghans who have worked with Western militaries and nongovernmental groups or had other contact with foreigners.

Is it possible, as some have said, that the Taliban have mellowed since being toppled in 2001? Muhammad Ibrahim Hanafi, a top Taliban commander, answered that question in an interview in March with CNN: “Our law is still the same old law which was in place during our rule in Afghanistan.”

The more President Karzai and his Western allies talk about reconciliation, the farther their public support will plummet.

In short her argument is this: talking with the Taliban is wrong because their views are barbaric and talks are unnecessary because the Taliban doesn't have much of a constituency.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:38 AM

 
1976 swine flu vaccine PSA featuring the Green Bay Packers

Swine Flu: The Packers from brienlee on Vimeo.

posted by Paul Tuns at 6:35 AM

 
Leading Zogby pot question

I may favour decriminalization (or legalization) of marijuana (and other drugs) but a recent Zogby poll question, reported by DoseNation, seems leading:

Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government's effort to legalize marijuana?

Respondents favoured marijuana decriminalization 52-37, but that is hardly surprising considering the question.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:32 AM

 
Three and out

3. At Hardball Times Jonathan Hale looks at the effects of height on hitting. Interestingly, there is little difference between small and average sized players, while larger players get more strikes but make up for it when they make contact.

2. Relatedly, at Baseball Analysts Jeremy Greenhouse looks at free agents since 2006 and found that larger players do better. The takeaway point: "Weight and True Distance correlate very well with slugging percentage. We can say with confidence that there is a bias toward heavier players who hit for power, all else being equal. For every ten pounds of weight or ten feet in home run distance, a hitter can expect a positive return averaging around 250 grand."

1. LA Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez suspended for 50 games for taking a banned substance under the MLB drug policy. His story sounds not only plausible but likely: his doctor prescribed a medication that contained a substance banned by baseball and the doctor and Ramirez were unaware it contained the banned substance. Ramirez says he has passed 15 drug tests over the past five years. If that is true, it seems unlikely Man Ram would be taking performance-enhancing drugs this time. Joe Posnanski has an excellent and understanding essay at SI.com.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:32 PM

 
Ezra interviewed by NRO

Ezra Levant discusses his book Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights with John J. Miller.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:36 PM

 
New look AEI

The American Enterprise Institute has a new look website. I think I like it. It passes the first test of whether it is user-friendly. As someone working on redesigning both a newspaper and its website, I should say it is very difficult to get the right look and feel.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:21 AM

 
Happy Odd Day

Get it: 05/07/09. There is even (sorry) an Odd Day website, which notes that "Three consecutive odd numbers make up the date only six times in a century." You will also find this poem:

As Odd as it is, the day will be fine,
You see, it's the numbers 5,7, and 9.
Three odds in a row to tell you the date,
We've only three more, then a 90-year wait.

posted by Paul Tuns at 9:52 AM

 
How an Ontario PC leadership candidate can win my vote

Leadership candidates, like political parties during a general election, pander through signalling whether it is proposing a new policy, wearing a sweater or announcing an endorsement. The big one, although perhaps not the most significant, is policy, and often they end up costing taxpayers a lot of money. Even policies designed to attract me vote (income splitting for couples with pre-school children at home) often repulse the taxpayer in me who feels the pain of other taxpayers who end up footing the bill of such micropandering.

I have a different idea on what the leadership candidates can do to get my vote: wash the windows on our two-storey home. The cost to taxpayers would be nil. I was going to ask for a thorough house cleaning (dusting, wash down the walls and floorboards, vacuum in the corners), but my wife says the outside windows haven't been done in years.

I am being serious. I'll vote for anyone not named Christine Elliott if the candidate arranges for himself or a representative to clean our outside windows. (Elliott or her staff would have to do the windows and clean the house.) Really, it is no more absurd than a $1000 Newborn Savings Account.

Arrange for it to be done by May 14 and my wife will sign up, too.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:00 AM

 
McGovern vs. Employee Free Choice Act

The object of conservative derision as the personification of all things liberal, former Democratic US presidential candidate George McGovern, writes in today's Wall Street Journal about his opposition to the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act:

Last year, I wrote on these pages that I was opposed to this bill because it would eliminate secret ballots in union organizing elections. However, the bill has an additional feature that isn't often mentioned but that is just as troublesome -- compulsory arbitration.

Read the whole thing.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:54 AM

 
Three and out

3. My National League All Star Ballot: 1B - Albert Pujols (St. Louis Cardinals); 2B - Chase Utley (Philadelphia Phillies); SS - Jose Reyes (New York Mets); 3B - David Wright (Mets); C - Russell Martin (Los Angeles Dodgers); OF - Carlos Beltran (Mets), Manny Ramirez (Dodgers), Kemp (Dodgers)

2. Doug Glanville has an excellent piece in the New York Times in which he explains deliberate and inadvertent pitch tipping, stealing signs and the need to know the truth about Alex Rodriquez and others. It is an informative and compassionate article, hinting that hatred of A-Rod may blind fans and pundits to the real issues. I would add just one thing: pitch tipping violates the integrity of baseball much more than performance-enhancing drugs. But for reasons that Glanville describes, I am a bit dubious that the most watched man in baseball was getting away with signalling to opposing batters.

1. At Nationals Journal, the WaPo baseball blog, Thomas Boswell looks at the stats and finds that few pitchers taken in the top 10 in the draft turn out to be great compared to hitters.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:05 PM

 
Great thought

From Russell Roberts: "Even in a recession, the world gets more beautiful every day. This the greatest time in human history to be curious." Beyond Kindle, so many wonderful things are easily available to so many people.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:58 PM

 
Stuff

1. "The Fascinating World Of The Dung Beetle," a NPR interview with Douglas Emlen, an expert on these insects.

2. Various MIT pranks from the Boston Globe.com. My favourite is probably the R2-D2 dome.

3. Benjamin Powell makes the case for privatizing roads.

4. A YouTube video of pro single-payer (health care) protesters interrupting the Senate Finance committee's deliberations on health care reform. Yes, the protesters are being rude and disruptive, but it is sort of amusing to watch committee chair Max Baucus try to explain why they shouldn't be heard (right then).

5. Postcards from yo momma -- a collection of motherly advice, for people who like that kind of thing.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:52 PM

 
Poor Hack

Hacks and Wonks is treating Green Party leader Elizabeth May like a real politician. May is an activist who doesn't understand that there is huge difference between running for class president in high school and running for Parliament. Until she understands that difference, she is not to be taken seriously.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:47 PM

 
Live to print another day

The union representing a bunch of Boston Globe workers capitulated and it now appears the New York Times Company won't close New England's largest paper. At least, not in the next few months. What is notable about all this is that the best case scenario is that the Times Co. threatened labour leaders with shutting down the company if they didn't make massive concessions. Fair enough, but imagine the hysterical coverage from the New York Times if another company tried the same tactic.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:30 AM

 
Environmental end times

Lester Brown resurrects neo-Malthusianism in the current American Scientific, wondering "Could food shortages bring down civilization?" He has predicted impending foot shortages since the mid-1960s and despite being wrong time and time again, he says that the current confluence of events (environmental degradation, the economic crisis, supposed coming water shortages, etc...) the "idea that civilization itself could disintegrate" should no longer seem preposterous. His argument, in brief, is food shortages will lead to an epidemic of failed states. Ronald Bailey critiques Brown's "dismal record as a prognosticator of doom" at Reason.com.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
Goldberg on the real corruption

Jonah Goldberg on the Barack Obama administration:

We ain’t seen nothing yet. For starters, the real corruption isn’t what the media are ignoring or downplaying as isolated incidents. It’s what the media are hailing as strokes of bold, inspirational leadership. The White House, as a matter of policy, is rewriting legal contracts, picking winners (mostly labor unions and mortgage defaulters) and singling out losers (evil “speculators”), while much of the media continue to ponder whether Obama is already a greater president than FDR.

If a Republican administration, staffed with cronies from Goldman Sachs and Citibank, were cutting special deals for its political allies, I suspect we’d be hearing fewer FDR analogies and more nouns ending with the suffix “gate.”

posted by Paul Tuns at 8:57 AM

 
Flu worries

BMO Nesbitt Burns economist Sherry Cooper worries that the current swine flu scare might further damage the economy. While that is undoubtedly true, she mentions the possibility of a 5-6% affect on economic growth rates. She raises the specter of companies having to close because of 30% absenteeism and local and national economies crippled by travel advisories and protectionism. But not only would trade be thwarted and (some) goods in short supply, there would be social disruption as schools and hotels are taken over to provide triage to millions suffering from the flu. Next there are clean water shortages and inadequate death-management systems just like 1918.

Stop! Sorry but I've heard this before.

In 2005, Cooper co-authored "An Investors Guide to Avian Flu" (with the normally sensible Donald Coxe). Four years ago she predicted a "panic" that could lead to another "Great Depression." She wrote, "The longer I think about this [avian flu], the grimmer it appears." And indeed it was pretty grim; she predicted the big economic winner would be funeral homes. But Cooper appeared to be crying wolf prematurely. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since 2003, just a little more than 400 people worldwide have died from H5N1 (avian flu).

Everyone is waiting for the next 1918 Spanish flu epidemic and it might happen. But a lot has changed: improved hygiene, antibiotics, public health systems and the knowledge gained from past disasters and epidemics. You would think that the chief economist at a major bank would be aware of such developments.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:54 AM

 
Sounds like the worst show ever

Latest celebrity reality show, to know the "real Denise Richards": It's Complicated. Here's the teaser.


posted by Paul Tuns at 8:52 AM

 
Stuff

1. Readers at Marginal Revolution provide their favourite "Austrian School" jokes. Some are really, really good. Many are not.

2. At Slate, Fred Kaplan has 25 indispensable movies to understand war and diplomacy. Similar lists of 10 such movies at ForeignPolicy.com from Daniel Drezner and Stephen Walt.

3. 20 best places in the world to live from Forbes.com.

4. Canadians for an Elected Senate. Read also Stephen Harper's January 2009 Citizens Center for Freedom and Democracy interview on the issue of an elected Senate.

5. "Lego Torture Scenes Protest Media Censorship" via Wired.com. (Legofest's depictions of events generally have a leftward bent to them.)
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:16 PM

 
Three and out

3. SI.com's Cliff Corcoran rates all 30 closers. For me the test is this: who do you want pitching in the ninth inning of a World Series game when you are ahead by a run or two. My ranking would be 1) Mariano Riveria (New York Yankees), 2) Jonathan Papelbon (Boston Red Sox), and 3) Jonathan Broxton (Los Angeles Dodgers). Corcoran's #1, Joe Nathan (Minnesota Twins) would be my #4. There is very little difference between the top four; I'd have as close to complete confidence in them as one can in a pitcher. Brad Lidge would not be in my top 10. I'm not sure how you pick between Francisco Rodriguez (New York Mets) and Bobby Jenks (Chicago White Sox) for spots five and six. I also wouldn't hold it against Carlos Marmol that the Chicago Cubs aren't using him as a closer, because he is one of the top ten closers in the game today when he gets the chance. There is significant drop off after #10 with #11 (Jose Valverde of the Houston Astros) and most the pitchers after that proving Billy Beane's philosophy that closers are a dime a dozen. Outside the elite and consistently very good, most closers are successful 75-85% of the time, strike out four batters every five innings, and allow just enough baserunners to make things interesting.

2. This is interesting: the Boston Red Sox are 16-10, good for the second best record in the American League, and DH David Ortiz hasn yet hit a homerun this season. If he fixes his swing -- he appears to have lost some speed after last year's wrist surgery -- the BoSox will be frightening.

1. The Dodgers are 19-8, winning 17 games against NL West opponents. That will create some distance between a team and the challengers. They hold a MLB-best five-game lead over their nearest rivals, the San Fransisco Giants.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:06 PM

 
Important but ignored political fact of the week

USA Today reports that Washington "supplanted sales, property and income taxes as the biggest source of revenue for state and local governments." My guess is that the feds will continue to be largest funder of state and local governments for some time after the current economic turmoil ends.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:01 PM

 
The importance of economic growth

From Modern Principles: Macroeconomics, the new econ text book from Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen:

In the United States, diarrhea is a pain, an annoyance, and of course an embarrassment. In much of the developing world, diarrhea is a killer, especially of children. Every year 1.8 million children die from diarrhea. Ending the premature deaths of these children does not require any scientific breakthroughs, nor does it require new drugs or fancy medical devices. Preventing these deaths requires only one thing: economic growth.

That's the opening paragraph to Chapter Six, "The Wealth of Nations and Economic Growth," which is worth reading. It is worth printing out and giving to your less economically literate friends.

The authors note that "any standard indicator of societal well-being tends to increase with wealth." With economic growth comes "piped water and flush toilets" which can cut infant mortality from diarrhea by 70%. Many other potentially lethal health problems, from malaria to measles, can also be combated with simple improvements to infrastructure and accessibility to goods and service that are almost impossible without the investment made possible by economic growth. As the chart on page two notes, there is a strong correlation between infant mortality and a country's wealth. This should have profound implications for both foreign assistance policies and personal giving, but this information is not new; it has been ignored for a long time. Perhaps better educated economics students today can make a positive difference in the future (in terms of policy-making and public opinion). Too many people today think that economic growth is a goal that only benefits the wealthy -- corporations, individuals, developed countries. Quoting Jack Kennedy, Jack Kemp often said a rising tide raises all boats. In the developing world, the rising tide of economic growth does not merely make the poor richer, but healthier, too.

The bottom line on the chapter is this: the good news is that while most people live in poverty there is no "reason in principle" that "economic growth cannot occur everywhere."

(Via Marginal Revolution)
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:03 AM

 
The most glass-is-half-full thing I have ever read

At Cafe Hayek Russell Roberts says that politicians have no business poking their noses into the issue of the College Bowl system. He concludes: "[W]hen Congress spends time doing stupid things it shouldn't be doing, it is not doing even stupider things it shouldn't be doing." How true.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:16 AM

 
What I'm reading

1. Dread: How Fear and Fantasy have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to the Avian Flu by Philip Alcabes. I am re-reading portions of the book which I bought and read on Saturday. I'm not sure whether Alcabes has written a book in which he takes an argument too far or whether he has written a book open to serious misinterpretation. I'll probably write more about Dread later.

2. A-rod: The Many Lives Of Alex Rodriguez by Selena Roberts. Just getting into it but I'm not a fan of Roberts -- she practically led a crusade against the Duke lacrosse team (see Harry Stein and Times Watch) -- and don't expect to read it with an open mind.

3. I re-reading parts of Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, And Other Confusions Of Our Time.

4. "To Reform or to Abolish? Christian Perspectives on Punishment, Prison, and Restorative Justice," by Jordan J. Ballor from the Spring 2008 Ave Maria Law Review.

5. "Demographics & Depression," by David P. Goldman in the May 2009 First Things.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:13 AM

 
Three and out

3. David Ortiz on pitch-tipping: 1) Ortiz has a hard time believing that Alex Rodriguez let opposing players know what his own pitcher would be delivering, and 2) how Ortiz would deal with a team-mate who was tipping pitches -- "I would beat the crap out of him."

2. Peter Abraham at LoHud Yankees Blog points out that the New York Yankees might be having trouble noticing and diagnosing injuries. If that's true -- and Abraham marshals a fair bit of evidence -- then its time to fire the trainer. In fact, it might be the best personnel move they make all season.

1. For years WGN baseball broadcaster Harry Caray sang/conducted Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch at every home game. After he passed away, the Cubs began using "guest conductors" and for the most part it has been atrocious. Last week, Denise Richards might be the worse and is a powerful argument for retiring this "tradition":


posted by Paul Tuns at 11:35 PM

 
Four and down

4. Buffalo Bills have a video tribute to the late-Republican Congressman and AFL quarterback Jack Kemp. I think they are wrong to call him great -- he might have won five division titles and two championships but he also threw most interceptions than touchdown passes -- but what else are they going to do with a player they have put on their wall of fame. Gregg Easterbrook has his remembrance of Kemp, a player he grew up watching, at ESPN.com.

3. ColdHardFootball Facts looks at how the five teams of the decade (the '60s Packers, '70s Steelers, '80s Niners, '90s Cowboys and '00s Patriots) were built through the draft.

2. I completely agree with the Washington Post's Thomas Boswell who says that the Washington Redskins have had a mixed off-season, aggressively addressing its defensive deficiencies through free agency and the draft, but also unnecessarily upsetting its (admittedly mediocre) QB, Jason Campbell.

1. At Forbes.com, John Tamny writes about the NFL draft and the "economic lessons about the folly of anti-trust, the subsidization of the unsuccessful and, most heartening, the happy reality that is trickle-down economics." I'm not terribly convinced about all that, but there is one broad lesson: predicting the future correctly is difficult and lots of chance-taking doesn't work out.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:29 PM

 
Bye-bye Boston Globe

Another one of my predictions for 2009 is likely to come true: the closing of the Boston Globe. The Washington Post reports:

The New York Times Co. said last night that it is notifying federal authorities of its plans to shut down the Boston Globe, raising the possibility that New England's most storied newspaper could cease to exist within weeks.

Might be a negotiating ploy by the New York Times Company, but I doubt it.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:19 AM

 
Is buying sex wrong?

Here is the first YouTube clip of a 14-part debate on 'paying for sex is wrong' that is worth watching. Arguing for the resolution was Wendy Shalit, Catherine Mackinnon, and Melissa Farley and arguing against the resolution (and for prostitution) was Tyler Cowen, Lionel Tiger and the Mayflower Madam.

I thought that the side I should be on (against paying for sex) was unpersuasive and that Lionel Tiger was correct to criticize Shalit's going on about child exploitation. Shallit has a point that the sexualized view of women often eventually trickles down to children but that is more an issue of parenting than a condemnation of prostitution; that is not what makes prostitution inherently bad. Child prostitution and trafficking is wrong but beside the point unless child exploitation and trafficking are intrinsic to the issue of prostitution and I don't think they are (or need be).

Farley's argument about inequality and the lack of choice for women was probably effective for the public, but I don't entirely buy it. Unlike some of the other views, though, at least it was intellectually honest and rhetorically appealing.

I'm also unsure that the topic -- paying for sex is wrong -- is really just about prostitution. What about the Wall Street executive sugar daddy who pays the rent and perhaps tuition for his student girlfriend or mistress? Is the husband in a single-earner family paying for sex? (I'd say he isn't, but let's hear the discussion; Lionel Tiger hints at it.)

I think the biggest issue for the side that thinks that paying for sex is wrong is that they are unable to talk about why it is wrong to commodify sex without an appeal to morality, which they are afraid to do in explicit terms. Here is the bottom line for me: sex should not be transactional because recreational (casual) sex is wrong. Put in the simplest terms possible, sexual relations should be be limited to married partners committed to one another for life and open to the possibility of creating new life. Indeed, I think it is impossible to argue against prostitution unless one is willing to argue that sex outside marriage is wrong. The weakness of the anti-prostitution side is their inability or unwillingness to make direct appeals to morality. Most everyone agrees that having sex with toddlers is morally wrong but unhelpful in determining whether it is right or wrong for consensual adults to trade sex for money. Tyler Cowen was correct to note that most arguments against prostitution are really complaints about the lack of regulation. The argument against prostitution was lost when pre-marital and extra-marital sex became normalized.

In all, an entertaining but hardly elucidating discussion that sidesteps the real issue.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
The future is California

And that ain't good. George F. Will explains the problems coming out of the not-so-Golden State:

Under Arnold Schwarzenegger, the best governor the states contiguous to California have ever had, people and businesses have been relocating to those states. For four consecutive years, more Americans have moved out of California than have moved in. California's business costs are more than 20 percent higher than the average state's. In the past decade, net out-migration of Americans has been 1.4 million. California is exporting talent while importing Mexico's poverty. The latter is not California's fault; the former is.

If, since 1990, state spending increases had been held to the inflation rate plus population growth, the state would have a $15 billion surplus instead of a $42 billion budget deficit, which is larger than the budgets of all but 10 states. Since 1990, the number of state employees has increased by more than a third. In Schwarzenegger's less than six years as governor, per capita government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased nearly 20 percent.

Out-of-control spending in the country's most liberal state is seriously limiting the options in crisis time (actually multiple crises). If the nation wants to see where reckless spending today will lead, it only needs to turn its gaze all the way westward.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:25 AM

 
Jack Kemp, RIP

At the age of 73, Jack Kemp has passed away. In The Corner, Rick Brookhiser remembers him fondly. Before entering politics, Kemp was a mediocre quarterback for 13 seasons in the late 1950s and throughout the 1060s, mostly for the Buffalo Bills (who have his name on their wall of fame); he is only one of 20 players to play in all ten seasons of the American Football League and started the AFL players' union.




















Once he entered politics in the late 1970s, he did more than anyone to argue for tax cuts and for that alone he should be remembered well. He wanted to make the GOP a big tent party back in the 1980s and 1990s by (for the most part) taking the conservative -- or at least a conservatish -- message to new audiences for the GOP and he did so with a minimum of watering down the core principles. (As I say, for the most part; in 1994 he opposed Proposition 187 which would have restricted government assistance to illegal immigrants.)

He has probably had zero relevancy since his disastrous campaign as Bob Dole's running mate, but his incorrigible optimism, zeal for lower taxes and defense of the entrepreneurial spirit is something that will be greatly missed in the Republican Party, all the more so because they are qualities largely lacking today.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:18 AM

 
How to get money to universities

Get professional sports teams/organizations to pay for the players they draft. The Wall Street Journal's Allen Barra says:

Last weekend the National Football League drafted 256 players from America's colleges. On May 19, the National Basketball Association will take around 60 more. Then, on June 9 and 10, Major League Baseball will pick another 45 or so. All of these athletes will have one thing in common: The cost of their training wasn't paid for by the professional leagues that drafted them, but by their colleges.

There are many reasons for the rise of the NFL and NBA over the past half-century, but one of the most important is seldom discussed: They don't pay for the development of their players. Though MLB does draw some talent from the nation's top collegiate programs, the major percentage of their players are brought up through an extensive minor-league system.

Barra then proposes an idea:

Here's an idea for a stimulus package for America's colleges: the NFL and the NBA and MLB should provide a full, four-year scholarship to each school for every player they draft from that college.

First of all, this pays a debt, or at least part of it. The cost of providing a scholarship for every player drafted would still be just a fraction of what it costs to train and care for each athlete.

Second, a reimbursement plan could be a stimulus package for national education. The recipients of the scholarships could even be chosen for their aptitude in science and math instead of for spiraling footballs or making 20-foot jump shots. The hundreds of millions in gross revenues produced by college students playing sports would at least benefit other students.

I'm not sold on it, but it isn't a horrible idea. I'd tweak it by having a sliding scale of payment based on the round in which a player is drafted and it might be worth exploring having players who make it to the big leagues "repay" their athletic scholarships or at least a portion of them.

However, when you look at the dollar amounts Barra is talking about (about $26 million), that isn't much for the schools in the grand scheme of things. But as a matter of fairness and having professional teams pay back a debt, I think there is a case for Barra's idea.
posted by Paul Tuns at 3:16 PM

 
More questions for me

These questions came from one person. If you have questions you'd like answered or want to comment on anything else at Sobering Thoughts, email me at paul_tuns[AT]yahoo.com. There's still a backlog of questions I plan on getting to throughout the next week.

Q. What was the best vacation you ever took before you had kids? After kids?

Best B.C.: Probably a four-week vacation to Europe I took with my parents and aunt and uncle in 1987 when I was 14. Spent half of it in my uncle's family corporate apartment in Alkmaar (Netherlands), took a one-week cruise on the Rhine (Koln to Bern and back), and traveled by car through Belgium and Luxembourg.

Best A.C.: Probably a Disney Cruise we took when the boys were ten and three -- before any of the three girls arrived. Disney does everything to a superior standard and the food and entertainment was excellent. No shortage of things to do and (theoretically, at least) a place to drop off the kids when parents wanted them out of their hair. The ESPN-themed bar with stadium-style seating was quite a special way to enjoy sports on TV.

Q. What movie have you seen the most times? Be honest - it might not be a film you'd call one of your favorites.

Easily Star Wars (the original) which I had seen well over 100 times before I was 18 and probably two dozen times with my sons since then. Next would be some James Bond movie, the first 18 of which (without exaggeration) I've watched more than 20 times each.

Q. What TV series should be available 24/7, like a public utility?

The Wire is by far the best television program and best use of television, period. But the public utility part is an interesting qualifier. People should laugh, so I'd say The Simpsons or Seinfeld.

Q. What was the vote you regret most in municipal, provincial and federal elections?

I am tempted to say all of them. But if I were honest, I'd say the Conservative Party candidate in the 2006 federal election. I can't recall the name, but I thought voting against Ken Dryden was important. But the Tories collected $1.75 for each of two years after that because of my vote for their candidate. I wish I hadn't done that and my regret over that vote has convinced me not to vote in general elections any more.

Q. Here's a key to your own time machine, and indemnity against destroying the space/time continuum - where do you go?

If the time machine could go forward, I'd go five or ten years into the future to obtain details of which stocks are going to go up the most and return to invest in those companies. But my eldest son tells me that most sci-fi time machines are limited to returning to the past, in which case I think I'd go to Jesus Christ's childhood and early teens. I'd like to see what his relationship and everyday life with Joseph and Mary was like.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:52 PM

 
Stuff

1. "100 Best First Lines of Novels," from the editors of American Book Review.

2. Sugar Stacks, a website that visualizes how much sugar in your favourite food, drink and snacks.

3. Scientific American on why the penis is shaped like a ... em, penis.

4. The New York Times on "Bone, A Masterpiece of Elastic Strength."

5. The Wall Street Journal was wrong, wrong, wrong on there being more professional bloggers than bartenders. Actually, Mark Penn, the Clintons' former pollster, is the one who is wrong.
posted by Paul Tuns at 7:30 AM

 
What does this say about Washington DC -- and those who get AIDS?

From Michael Gerson's column on AIDS/HIV in America's capital:

Unity Health Care provides services from dermatology to ophthalmology; due to stigma, few would come to a clinic that deals exclusively with HIV/AIDS. But Dr. Gebeyehu Teferi, the medical director of HIV services, sees the AIDS crisis in every form -- intravenous drug users, prostitutes, men who have sex with men, and middle-aged women shocked by their diagnosis and the infidelity of their partners. (Among African Americans in the District, the single largest method of transmission is heterosexual sex.) "There are late, full-blown cases coming into the emergency room," says Teferi. "People who say, 'I don't use drugs, or even drink.' They forget about the sexual part of it."

And what does it say about two decades of AIDS propaganda that there are people who get it because "they forget about the sexual part of it"?
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:31 AM

 
Robson on being ready for the swine flu

John Robson from today's Ottawa Citizen in an excellent column on swine flu and whether you and Canada are ready for it:

I said at the outset there are two good reasons for thinking we're all gonna die. One is everybody dies, and the goal of keeping fit, ducking when you hear loud noises and seeking appropriate medical care is simply to postpone the event as long as is reasonably possible.

That's why he is Canada's best columnist.

The column, as I said, is excellent. As Robson points out, there are two reasons why we might not be ready for the swine flu:

1) As individuals we are unfit -- we don't exercise, eat well or drink enough water for our bodies to be prepared to fight off the flu if we get it.

2) The health care system is already at capacity; what happens when we tax the system with thousands (or more) if the swine flu becomes a Canadian pandemic, or merely a panic?

Have a nice day.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:24 AM

 
Stuff

1. "If Homer's Odyssey Was Written On Twitter." Really funny.

2. The Name of the Year has been awarded: Juvyline Cubangbang. The committee found that "Her improbable first name conjures a fountain of youth. Her repetitive surname -- you're dead! -- is as musical as it is formidable."

3. "Best websites with solutions for ailing iPods," from The Week.

4. ZooLex is an excellent site that looks at zoo renovations and exhibits. There is a lot of information and great photos. If you are interested in zoos/animals, ZooLex is worth taking the time to check out. I spent a few hours on it last night.

5. Steve Goldman has a painfully honest piece at Baseball Prospectus on his anxiety disorder, which prevented him from getting on a plane for a book signing event in St. Louis this week. He intersperses his own story with that of Gordon "Babe" Phelps (a catcher from the 1930s) who didn't travel with the team by plane because of his own fears of flying. Even if you are not a baseball, this is worth reading. Relatedly, Joe Posnanski has a really great cover story in this week's Sports Illustrated on Kansas City Royal ace Zack Greinke who has overcome his own social anxiety disorder.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:21 AM

 
Three and out

3. Tim Marchman at SI.com on the Seattle Mariners and how defense can turn a team around. As Marchman notes, it did wonders for the Tampa Bay Rays last year, adding the equivalent of Barry Bonds in his prime to the team.

2. Suck eggs Zumaya. Reason is here.

1. According to plenty of sportswriters and talking heads, fans have been keeping away from the ballpark in 2009, for whatever reason. Except, its not true. As ESPN.com's Jayson Stark notes, if you don't include the two New York teams (who opened new but significantly smaller stadia this year), "The average crowd at a baseball game this April was just 287 customers smaller than the average game last April -- even with one fewer weekend to draw from."
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:16 AM

 
Four and down

4. Mock drafts are pretty useless at predicting which teams will draft who. ColdHardFootballFacts.com finds that of the eight mock drafters they were watching (including themselves), the success rate was just 23% and nobody had better than a 28.1% success rate.

3. The Washington Redskins have long claimed a waiting list of 200,000 for seasons tickets. Apparently there is reason to doubt this.

2. The New England Patriots continue to collect tight ends. This time it's Alex Smith, last seen wearing a Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniform. I'm sure there is a plan.

1. The New York Jets have released Brett Favre so if he wants to come out of retirement, he can sign with anyone as a free agent. I doubt he will and pray he won't. David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune thinks there is a decent chance Favre will end up wearing Minnesota Viking purple next year (he carefully parses Favre's retirement announcement) and although the veteran of 19 NFL seasons might be an upgrade over Sage Rosenfels and Tavaris Jackson, his reputation has suffered enough.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:13 AM