Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns. I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015). I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!" You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).

 
What can be said about the GOP primary after Michigan and Arizona

Mitt Romney won both and in a week there will be 10 more states on Super Tuesday and we might have a clearer idea of how this will all play out by then. Proclamations that Romney needed this or it was all over or that Rick Santorum can't win now are all premature. The results move us closer to what likely inevitable all along, but it is still a little too early to concede it's over quite yet. Unfortunately, the chatter about a "brokered convention" or some new emergent candidate is unlikely to be quelled -- and might, in fact, intensify -- after last night. Also expect more of this type of column about the possibility of an independent candidate. Both are nonsense and indicative of pundits desperately looking for something to say.

One other observation: Mitt Romney, whom I do not support and for whom I would not and probably could not vote, seems very presidential. During my lifetime there have been three presidential-seeming candidates: Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and if he gets the nomination, Romney. Looking like you deserve the job helps a lot.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:57 AM

 
Happy Leap Day

Daily Buzz has an article Leap Day, with a focus on babies born on February 29. Some interesting facts:

Worldwide there are just fewer than five million leapers and the odds of being born on the day are about one in 1,461...

Leapers have been denied their "free" birthday meal from restaurants and have many computer issues. A parent of Zoe Sanders writes a hospital in Florida had to call a technician to "fix" the problem when the doctor couldn't enter February 29 into the system. A woman in Minnesota couldn't renew her driver's license and a woman in North Carolina couldn't set up a bank account because the systems didn't recognize the day.

Matthew Yglesias has a post at Slate on the economic impact of leap year and he says "nothing really happens." The Chicago Tribune reports that there might be more impact for businesses if it fell on Saturday because that is a busier day for car sales and hotel room rentals, but a Saturday is a Saturday and I don't know if it really matters if it happens to occur in February or March.

Also, the Jay Treaty (or, more properly, the Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America) took effect on this day in 1796.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:53 AM

 
Three and out (under-observed points edition)

3. While most of the talk surrounding the Washington Nationals has to do with 1) whether 19-year-old catcher Bryce Harper will start the season in the Majors, 2) them not signing Prince Fielder and 3) the contract extension for 3B Ryan Zimmerman, most pundits are ignoring what should amount to an impressive rotation (or at least front four) of Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, and Edwin Jackson. Even assuming Gonzalez loses something moving from the spacious park in Oakland, that's an impressive pitching foursome.

2. Pundits have many opinions about the Oakland A's signing Manny Ramirez to a minor-league deal, but they really have no idea how a 40-year-old former slugger, four years removed from his last full campaign and less than a year removed from avoiding a 100-game suspension by "retiring," will perform. Neither do I, but the price is right to give him a try, even if he won't be available until late May due to having to serve 50 games of his suspension. Two things. First, there is no guarantee he is called up to the Major League roster. Second, for a team using Josh Reddick, Seth Smith, and whoever is replacing the injured Scott Sizemore in the heart of the order -- I'll pause to give you time to google them -- the bar to contributing with a bat is pretty low. And ManRam hits, he might be trade bait for some prospect to help the A's when they move into their new stadium. This is a very-low-cost for remote-chance-of-reward move that is definitely worth taking if you are the nothing-to-lose A's. This free agent signing cannot be judged on what Ramirez might or might not do as much as the what the possibilities are for a team that won't sniff playoff contention this year.

1. David Pinto at Baseball Musings has this to say about the post-season of the San Diego Padres: "The Padres, like a number of teams, did not make moves to win in 2012. The players that will put them over the top are going to come from their farm system. The major league moves above are to keep the team interesting until the new core of talent arrives." Pundits and fans must remember that while the goal of every team should be to win, when to win is a variable. Of course, not every team's goal is to win; for some, it is merely to make money and to spend money for the chance to win is too big a risk. Either way, it makes very little sense for the Padres to try and win in 2011.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:50 AM

 
NDP MP admits stupidity, blames the objects of her stupidity

The Halifax Chronicle Herald reports:

Halifax MP Megan Leslie says senators are so unimportant, she can’t even name all the ones from Nova Scotia. She doubts most people could.

“I am hard pressed to actually name the senators from Nova Scotia,” she said Monday in the House of Commons.

Leslie is trying to make a point but I'm not sure she succeeds. Let's for a moment apply the same standard to the NDP caucus in Parliament: I can't name all the NDP MPs and I doubt most voters couldn't either, therefore they must be unimportant. Never mind, the Leslie standard just might work after all.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:42 PM

 
'The Elusive Pricing Model for Journalism'

Arnold Kling's post about finding the best way to get people to pay for online print journalism is more interesting and less daunting than the title.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:07 PM

 
Ontario vs. Alberta

Privately I have been questioning the wisdom of the nation-state for some time. As artificial as "Europe" is as a political entity, so is Canada or very nearly every other country. Those thoughts come to the foreground as Alberta Premier Alison Redford says that Ontario should publicly defend her province's oil sands production and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty responds with a polite "screw you" Alberta by decrying Canada's "petro dollar." The economic interests of the West are not the same as the economic interests Central Canada and it could be argued (as McGuinty suggests) that they are at odds with one another.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:00 PM

 
The Man in Black was born 80 years ago today

Johnny Cash was born 80 years ago today. Hard to believe that he died nine years ago. Time has a little write-up and photo essay looking back at the Man in Black's career. The Tennessean reports on the opening of the new Johnny Cash museum in Nashville. You can listen to JohnnyCashRadio.com anytime. Here's his most under-rated song, Starkville City Jail.


posted by Paul Tuns at 7:06 PM

 
I wish I had the time

Tyler Cowen notes that Bruce Bartlett's book on tax reform, The Benefit and The Burden: Tax Reform - Why We Need It and What It Will Take is out. Indeed, it's been available for nearly a month.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:48 PM

 
Gerry's maxims

Gerry Nicholls has a very good list of political maxims. I am leaning toward disagreeing with #46 about applause lines for partisans (I would like to know Gerry's rationale) and despite my own cynicism (Me: "the only job of a politician is to get elected") I have a real problem with maxim #50 (idealism and politics don't mix -- see Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama), but overall this is a very, very good list. These are the six facts about politics most commonly ignored by politicians:

5) Get voters to react, not think.

15) Voters don’t care what you think; they care what they think.

21) If you can’t get people to like you, get them to agree with you

27) Most voters don’t care about ideology, they care about values.

33) Don’t worry about media bias, they are out to get you, but they are also out to get everybody else.

42) Don’t underestimate the importance of luck.

posted by Paul Tuns at 9:47 PM

 
BCF beat the CBC

Blazing Cat Fur won his YouTube battle with CBC and can post the Sun News satirical video showing the state broadcaster's official mouthpiece Kirstine Stewart explaining the CBC's mission alongside porn from France that the French wing of the CBC provides on its website. The CBC claims copyright infringement but really it just shows how ridiculous they are so they were embarrassed.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:37 AM

 
David Warren on Ash Wednesday

In a column on the state of Christianity and the Catholic Church in modern society, Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren explains why we Christians wear ashes today:

While we are used to getting the upbeat tone from church leaders in all congregations — that sick-making, public-relations blather I find especially irritating in sellout bishops — the Christian teaching begins instead in that assertion of Christ’s. The truth may be extremely uncomfortable, and from many angles desolating, but it must be faced. We cannot build our lives or our churches upon pathetic lies...

The way forward begins in the smallest of truths, in the here and now.

It begins in ashes. Through Lent we are called upon — those who hear the call — to wear the ashes. To wear the truth of defeat and desolation, for there is no other position from which we can hope to rise.

posted by Paul Tuns at 8:46 AM

 
Marseilles on verge of becoming the first Western majority-Muslim city

National Geographic has an article on Marseilles, the 2,600-year-old French city that will become the West's first majority-Muslim city, or as the author Christopher Dickey says, "It may well be the first western European city with a majority of its residents from Muslim backgrounds." People "from Muslim backgrounds" is a new way of avoiding using the term Muslim. But that coyness is not the major problem with this article which has interesting tidbits about the changing culture of the Mediterranean city, but is too fascinated by the cross-pollination of American pop culture influences and Muslim traditions. This is the future for large parts of Europe so the article is worth reading yet I found myself wondering how a more incisive and honest observer like Mark Steyn would have written the it.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:43 AM

 
The Greek bailout won't happen

Felix Salmon explains why almost every assumption behind Greece's bailout is probably false. Greek politicians probably won't pass the austerity measures. Investors probably won't buy bonds. The economic realities probably won't cooperate with the planners. This isn't a bailout; it is buying time. Even though this "bailout" could all fall apart within months, "this deal might well delay catastrophic capital flight from Greece, and give the Europeans more time to work out how to shore up Portugal if and when that happens."
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:39 PM

 
On John Rawls

Arnold Kling on the highly over-rated philosopher John Rawls:

As far as I am concerned, Rawls is the Regis Philbin of political philosophy. He is famous for being famous. Yes, there is substance in Rawls, but it is pedestrian substance. It struck me as pedestrian when it came out (to more fanfare than any other academic work in my lifetime), and it still strikes me that way. To say that my view of Rawls is not widely shared is an understatement...

I had a high school teacher suggest I read John Rawls and I made my way through some portion of his Rawls books before I got to university and it served me well. Whenever I got my schedule in university I would drop courses if:

1) The class began before 10:30 a.m. unless it was taught by a professor I had before and really liked;

2) The class was taught by a prof I had and didn't like;

3) The class fell on a Friday;

4) John Rawls was included among the required reading.

I usually dropped more than half my courses each semester to create a more civilized schedule but I dropped at least two philosophy/political science courses due to the violation of Rule 4.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:40 PM

 
The Left and sex

Jonathan V. Last writes in the current Weekly Standard:

[W]hat is it that motivates those on the left? Why do they care so deeply about the kind of insurance coverage Catholic employers provide? It’s not as if NARAL and Planned Parenthood devotees are heavily represented in the workforce of Catholic institutions. And you don’t see petitions from leftwing pressure groups calling on the church to provide better dental and vision coverage, or mental health benefits. Which would, as a pragmatic matter, be much more helpful for more of the workforce than the contraceptive mandate. No, for the left, the fight isn’t about social justice or the proper scope of the state. It’s about the contraceptives. It’s about sex.

That is because, as Last explains, the 1960s "produced one permanent orthodoxy for liberalism: an absolute commitment to sexual liberation." Sex unencumbered by any restraint, including the natural consequences of the act (let alone any moral strictures), is, Last says, the primary dogma of the Left. Charles Murray observes in his new book Coming Apart that the economic elite, who are more liberal, might be church-going than the conservative stereotype might suggest, so we cannot accurately state, as Rush Limbaugh did all day today, that the Left doesn't have religion so it has environmentalism, sex, and abortion. But it is possible to say that liberals have more than one god, and unrestrained sexual pleasure is one of them.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:32 PM

 
Weekend stuff

1. Tonight Fox airs the 500th episode of The Simpsons. Here's Matt Groening's interview with the Los Angeles Times on reaching that milestone.

2. If you think movies are formuliac, have you ever considered movie posters? Travis Pitts outlines the six rules of modern movie poster design.

3. For Irish and Irish-at-heart Pittsburgh Steelers fans: St. Patrick's Day themed Terrible Towel.

4. Sports economist J.C. Bradbury's tweet about Gary Carter's death provides a different way to think of cancer.

5. The always interesting Jonah Lehrer writes in Wired's Frontal Cortex blog about "What Jeremy Lin Teaches Us About Talent?" The article is about talent evaluation and allocation in pro sports. Lehrer asks if the NBA's meritocracy is always effective? Great question.

6. Slate's slideshow of Rick Santorum's sweater vests.

7. Mental Floss answers the question: "What Makes Bloodhounds Such Great Tracking Dogs?" More olfactory receptors but the wrinkly skin and droopy ears help, too.

8. Forbes notes that last week's Grammy's were the highest rated since 1984 (seems like Whitney Houston's death was a rating's boom for the music awards show) and that AMC's The Walking Dead mid-season premiere had the "strongest drama telecast in basic cable history against key demos." The article examines how TWD uses social media to become a water cooler show.

9. The Walken Dead:


posted by Paul Tuns at 4:36 PM

 
The world would be better ...

If we listened to Cicero:

Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century:
Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others;
Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected;
Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it;
Refusing to set aside trivial preferences;
Neglecting development and refinement of the mind;
Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

That's from Listverse's "20 Great Quotes from Cicero." It is notable that we continue to make these errors more than two millennia after the Roman politician/lawyer identified them.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:37 AM

 
Two years later, how much aid money has filtered down to Haitians?

Two years after a 7.0 Richter scale earthquake devastated Haiti, The New Internationalist looks at whether the $10 billion in emergency aid given to the island state has actually helped Haitians. The sad answer is "not so much":

One of the most notorious examples of this disparity in the delivery of funds came from the American Red Cross. Despite collecting $255 million in private donations, only $106 million made it to its Haiti relief project.

Reconstruction projects aren't much better:

And while billions of dollars have undoubtedly managed to filter through, a lack of interaction between NGOs and locals means very little of it ends up in Haitian hands. Studies have shown that only 2.3 per cent of reconstruction aid went to Haitian firms. Haitians have, in many ways, simply been excluded from the rebuilding of their own country.

There are plenty of disturbing numbers and distressing tales. The entire article is worth reading.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:08 AM

 
What contraception has wrought?

Andrea Mrozek at ProWomanProlife observes:

Is it just me, or is it a little bit ironic that there’s a column in today’s post by Father de Souza called “What contraception has wrought” and then just a few pages before, an article about rising infertility in Canada?

posted by Paul Tuns at 10:14 PM

 
#36 turns 40 today

Former Pittsburgh Steeler running back Jerome Bettis turned 40 today. Behind the Steel Curtain had a nice tribute to Bettis a few weeks ago when he was a candidate for the Football Hall of Fame. Below, Bettis demonstrates why they called him "Bus".


posted by Paul Tuns at 10:03 PM

 
Don't text and walk


posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
Getting the term socialist correct

I hate the promiscuous use of the term socialist by those on the Right. However, my thinking might be amended slightly considering Don Boudreaux's comments:

Or, rather more appropriately, is nearly every modern politician (and many a pundit) a socialist? The answer is no, if by “socialist” is meant someone who advocates government ownership of the means of production.

But suppose that “socialist” instead refers to someone who advocates something akin to the actual type of property law that existed in 20th-century socialist regimes such as the U.S.S.R. What then?

Boudreaux explains that decision-making on different kinds of property (including private) has been collectivized. That seems socialist to me and a defensible use of the word. Yet, I prefer "statist policies" over "socialist policies" as a description. A greater precision rather than rhetorical exuberance might benefit conservatives and libertarians. Most people don't accept the enlarging of government agenda of the Left as socialist -- too Cold War, too Eastern European, too distantly in the past. The average person might be wrong, but you cannot convince people when they tune you out because the rhetoric is off-putting.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:48 PM

 
Santorum v. Romney

I haven't weighed in on the primaries in a while. Fact is no one knows who is going to do what and how the incredibly fickle GOP electorate is going to behave. Ten days ago it was unthinkable that Romney could end up not winning Michigan. Today polls show him behind Rick Santorum by a couple of points. I think this is a long way from being done, but I'd say there is a better than 50% chance now that Romney will not be the Republican presidential nominee. I wouldn't have said that just two days ago. If Santorum wins Michigan (and that if is far from certain at this point), the former Pennsylvania senator will come under heavy scrutiny. We'll see if he can withstand it. (Romney is already beginning to criticize Santorum and until now he's had a free pass.) Of course, it would help Santorum if Newt Gingrich exited the race, but there is no reason the Walking Ego would do that because the former Speaker is not in the race to win anymore, but to be surrounded by microphones and feel self-important. (Normally I dislike this kind of Gregg Easterbrook-style moralizing, but it is all too obvious in Newt's case.)

According to Intrade, Gingrich has a 3.5% chance of becoming the GOP nominee, Santorum 14.6% and Romney a whopping 74.9%. In this case, it appears that Intrade is capturing the Beltway conventional wisdom. Of course, if there was a 51% chance the Romney would win, it makes sense for people to bet heavily on him, although perhaps not as lop-sided as Intrade is capturing.

After the Michigan primary, expect pundits to declare the beginning of this or the end of that, but in reality it will be the continuation of Santorum's rise/Romney's fall or a rejuvenation of Romney's campaign and either a hiccup in or the end of Santorum's rise. The point is there is a lot of primary season to go. The Democrats didn't decide on Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton until June in 2008. Don't be in such a hurry to crown a nominee. The pundits are bored with the Republican race and want to get to the presidential contest. That's their problem. Republicans can let more than a half-dozen states speak before deciding who their standard-bearer will be for November, which is still nine months away.

One last thing: stop the talk of a brokered convention. Every presidential cycle the media starts talking about the convention decided the nominee when a single candidate does not win three or four consecutive primaries and caucuses. These things have a way of sorting themselves out, but more importantly to echo a point by David Frum, to have a brokered convention you need brokers and conventions don't work that way anymore.

Okay, one more last thing: Republicans should do themselves a favour and ignore Richard Florida who tweeted: "Note to Rustbelt - You have a long & glorious progressive forward-looking tradition. Do your nation a favor: Reject Santorum." It makes as much sense for Republicans to let Florida dictate their nominee as it would for an NFL owner to let a fan of the opposing team call plays during a championship game: he's a spectator and on the other side.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:59 AM

 
Not news

NDP expected to win Toronto Danforth by large margin according to a poll reported in the Toronto Star. Scroll down to my post yesterday for the Coles Notes explanation.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:49 AM

 
Change you don't get to see 'til it's too late

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby has a good piece on the contraception mandate imposed by the Obama administration (the "compromise" is bogus and contraception is still mandated). This 'graph says so much about the Obama administration's style of governance and about modern liberalism's approach to, well, the whole world:

During the national debate over enacting ObamaCare in 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously declared that Congress would "have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." What’s in it, millions of Americans now realize, goes well beyond the mandate that forces every individual to obtain health insurance or be fined by the IRS. There is also imperious culture-war bullying, in which religious employers with grave objections to abortion and artificial birth control are commanded to buy insurance policies covering them, regardless of their moral qualms.

Liberalism cannot be upfront with its agenda and will use the courts and bureaucracy to impose its agenda on all of society. There are no limits on what the state can tell people and companies to do and there is total disdain for people with different points of view. Government is there, in the liberal's mind, to direct people to do the things liberals want.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:47 AM

 
Justin Trudeau is willing to breakup Canada to defend abortion and same-sex marriage

Globe and Mail has the story. Here's my take at The Interim's blog, Soconvivium.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:25 PM

 
Toronto Danforth

There are times that I get on a roll with a blog post and then decide I'm going to turn it into a column and try to sell it instead. By the time I know whether it sells or not, it is too late to post. Today is one of those days. I want to call bullshit on the Tories saying Toronto Danforth is the Liberals' to lose (in the March 19 bye-election) because Dennis Mills held the riding for nearly 16 years (winning four elections from 1988 through 2000), even though the NDP have held the riding since 2004. The Hill Times has the story about the bye-election in which a Conservative Party spokesman makes the outrageous claim. Contrary to the Tories, Toronto Danforth is, in fact, one of the most solidly NDP and left-wing ridings in the province.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:56 AM

 
Refugee claimants costing Canadian taxpayers

QMI reports:

According to government estimates, it will cost taxpayers about $168 million to process the 5,800 European applications.

The reason the bill could be so high is because refugee applicants are allowed to stay in Canada while they wait for their file to be reviewed by the Immigration and Refugee Board.

During their stay, applicants can receive dental and health-care services, as well as employment insurance benefits. They are also given housing money.

Furthermore, the government considers most of these European refugee claimants bogus. As Brigitte Pellerin notes:

The government is apparently looking for ways to stop this abuse as quickly as possible. May I suggest not handing over so much free money while claimants wait? Obviously we don’t want to let people starve, but between “not starving” and “getting on average $28,000 worth of services per person, whether you’re a real refugee or a bogus one”, there ought to be some room to cut, right?

Well, that does sound reasonable, but in the world of politics the Tories would get bashed by the opposition parties because anything short of the status quo would be depicted as endangering the lives of vulnerable people with race-based political ploys to satisfy a racist party base.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:47 PM

 
Robson on hospital food

Sun columnist John Robson on hospital food:

But since you need nourishment and your digestion is probably upset, whatever you get should be easy to eat.

Instead you’re lucky if hospital jello isn’t disgusting. And even the chicken noodle soup never seems to taste like they opened a can of Campbells and followed the directions. Why not? You might think hospitals should be able to do better than tinned soup. But how on earth can they consistently do worse?

Now just because I watch the Food Channel doesn’t mean I’m ready to take on an Iron Chef, or even a tin one ... But I couldn’t make something as nasty as hospital food even by accident, let alone on purpose. It’s almost as though they hate their customers.

Of course, as Robson also notes, they can treat their customers like crap, just like sporting arenas and airports, because their customers are trapped and have no other place to eat.

For the record, Sick Kids in Toronto has excellent meal service for kids: food is not great, but it is hardly offensive. And there is tremendous choice as patients get to order from an actual menu.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:26 PM

 
Weekend stuff

1. The Composites is a blog of images that put literary character descriptions through police composite sketch software.

2. Slate has a slideshow on super-sized structures.

3. The Aaron Rodgers Photobomb collection. If you find this kind of thing amusing, scroll through -- there are some good ones.

4. Mental Floss has "11 Amazing Thank You Letters" including Ronald Reagan's 1994 letter disclosing he had Alzheimer's in which he thanks America for letting him be their president.

5. New Scientist reports that researchers think zebras got their stripes to thwart blood-sucking insects.

6. Atlantic Monthly reports that house cats might be making their owners crazy -- or at least very sick.

7. The Smithsonian magazine has nice things to say about Attila the Hun.

8. Epic Meal Time's 35-pound, 35,000 calorie Super Bowl Big Dirty Manningwich


posted by Paul Tuns at 7:41 PM

 
Did Michael Bloomberg become mayor of Los Angeles?

L.A. to fine people $1000 for throwing frisbees and footballs on the beach.
posted by Paul Tuns at 4:40 PM

 
Fukuyama and Thiel

Francis Fukuyama interviews Peter Thiel for The American Interest (too bad there isn't video). Two excerpts. The first is observational and not terribly controversial:

Consider, too, that in 1960 we spoke of the First World and the Third World; today we speak of the developed world and the developing world, the part that is looking to copy the West. The developed world is where we expect nothing more to happen. The earlier dichotomy was fairly pro-technology and in some ways more agnostic on the prospects for globalization. The present dichotomy is extremely bullish on globalization and implicitly pessimistic about technology. Of course, we can point to the great fortunes that have been made in the tech industry, but of the great fortunes that have been made in the world over the past twenty or thirty years, most have not been made in technology. Look at the Russian oligarchs. Maybe one out of a hundred billionaires has a tech-related fortune. The others are a political thing linked somehow to globalization. So that’s why I think it’s important to quantify these things correctly. We tend to focus a lot on the optimistic tech narrative that notes a lot of progress, but I think the more important question is why it hasn’t been happening.

I was surprised that Thiel, a libertarian, said this:

We have different kinds of challenges on the government side. One is a little more philosophical in nature: We tend to think the future is indeterminate. But it used to be seen as a much more determinate thing and subject to rational planning. If it’s fundamentally unknowable, it doesn’t make sense to say anything about it. To put it in mathematical terms, we’ve had a shift from thinking of the world in terms of calculus to statistics. So, where we once tracked the motions of the heavenly bodies and could send Voyager to Jupiter over a multiyear trajectory, now we tend to think nature is fundamentally driven by the random movements of atoms or the Black-Scholes mathematical model of financial markets—the random walk down Wall Street. You can’t know where things are going; you only know they’re going to be random. I think some things are true about this statistical view of the future, but it’s extremely toxic for any kind of rational planning. It’s probably linked in part to the failure of state communist central planning, though I would argue that there is something to be said for some planning over no planning. We should debate whether it should be decentralized or centralized, but what the United States has today is an extremely big government, a quasi-socialist government, but without a five-year plan, with no plan whatsoever.

posted by Paul Tuns at 4:29 PM

 
Maclean's in-depth story of the Shafia killings

Maclean's 10-chapter story of the Shafia "honour" killings is available online and as an ebook.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:59 PM

 
Literally like

I won't even comment on actress Chelsea Handler having an abortion at age 16 because, as she said, she wouldn't have been a good mother, but rather want to focus on how she is not very articulate. Talking about her brother's death she told Rosie O'Donnell: "He was hiking in the Grand Tetons and he literally fell like 80 feet off a cliff." So was it literally 80 feet or like 80 feet?
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:51 AM

 
The Berlin Wall

Charles W. Wiley wrote about the Berlin Wall in 1969 for National Review. An excerpt:

Despite the changes in Berlin, East and West, the Communists are still far behind in almost every way. Granted improvements in the East since the Wall, the streets are still dull and life?less compared to the West. Although East Germany is the best off of all Communist countries — and East Berlin is the best city in East Germany — living standards are still far below those in West Germany. And the economy is chronically in trouble. Apparently even German efficiency cannot cope with the built-in defects of the Communist system. And the people still try to escape at almost any cost.

For a contemporary view of this most apt symbol of totalitarianism and the two Germanys, read the whole article. It should be noted that the conservative observation that communism led to lives that were impoverished and dreary was controversial at the time.
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:46 AM

 
Russia, Red China enable continued violence in Darfur

Amnesty International has a briefing illustrating that Russia, Red China and Belarus are selling weapons to Sudan, which are used to continue the violence in Darfur (remember that place, where genocide was occurring seven, eight years ago). An excerpt from the announcement of the briefing:

A briefing, Sudan: No end to violence in Darfur, documents how China, Russia, and Belarus continue to supply weapons and munitions to Sudan despite compelling evidence that the arms will be used against civilians in Darfur. Exports include supplying significant quantities of ammunition, helicopter gunships, attack aircrafts, air-to-ground rockets and armoured vehicles.

"Never again" -- at least until the next time. No doubt the United Nations will continue its inactive hand-wringing.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:01 AM

 
Halftime in America: Remy Chrysler Ad Parody

The line about Ben Roethlisberger was a cheap shot, but this is pretty funny: Madonna/Lady Gaga, Chrysler being an "American" company.


posted by Paul Tuns at 8:56 AM

 
In Canada it is legal to kill an unborn child -- you just can't show a photo of it

Story at LifeSiteNews.com. Video below.


posted by Paul Tuns at 8:47 PM

 
Four and down (Super Bowl edition)

4. If this was a mid-season game, I'd give it a C for entertainment and B for the quality of football. But the Super Bowl is something special so this game gets upgraded. But it lacked dramatic or big plays as both teams played not to lose rather than to win -- until the final four minutes. What drama there was came from the fact that the score was always close and the outcome in question until the final seconds. A lead change with a minute to go and 50 seconds for Tom Brady to engineer a comeback provided plenty of drama.

3. It is tempting to blame Tom Brady and the Patriots offense for the loss, but sometimes a team that doesn't score is simply outplayed by the opposing defense. Give credit to the G-Men's D. Other than the 14-play, 96-yard scoring drive to end the first half, the Giants prevented Brady from short-passing his way up and down the field like the Patriots usually do. You can blame injuries to Rob Grankowski and Brady (an in-game shoulder injury), but New York did a marvelous job stopping the Pats.

2. The Patriots receivers were making catches in the early part of the game, running circles around the Giants linebackers, but as the game went on, New York's defensive line did a better job of 1) blocking receivers immediately after the snap and 2) getting to Tom Brady. In the second half, Wes Welker and Aaron Hernandez dropped catchable balls -- but sometimes that happens. More importantly, they were unable to consistently get into open space. That's the D doing its job.

1. The Giants got off to an impressive 9-0 start, aided by an unusual intentional grounding penalty when an unpressured Tom Brady through the ball in the middle of the field when he was in the end zone -- I've never seen a throw up the middle called for intentional grounding. The Patriots then scored 17 unanswered points before Eli Manning ramped up his game, leading to a pair of drives in which the Giants had to settle for a pair of field goals (including one off a turnover). Usually drives that result in three points rather than seven end up losing games for Pats opponents. But the Giants defense kept the Pats to a season-low 17 points and there was still that beautiful final drive engineered by Eli Manning. Mario Manningham caught a 38-yard pass in which he fought off a pair of defenders before going out of bounds. Manning threw to Manningham two more times for a total of 18 yards and then he threw to Hakeem Nicks for another 14 yards to get within 18 of the end zone at the two minute warning. Bill Belichick would ultimately let the Giants score with a minute left in the game rather than blow a timeout and leave Brady with less than 20 seconds on the clock. Still, Manning deserves the credit for the victory after that final drive.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:42 PM

 
This goes entirely counter the thinking today

Robin Hanson writes:

[I]t is not enough to note that you do or don’t like something, to justify a policy to encourage or discourage it.

Most people think good things should be legislated and bad things banned. For many legislators and voters, it is that simple. Sadly, it is difficult to think of an infringement of freedom that is not rooted in someone's dislike of something (guns, smoking, other people's wealth, someone else having fun).
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:52 PM

 
I warn American friends not to be too smug about Europe's troubles

DollarCollapse.com has a must-read story: "Why Isn’t Illinois A Bigger Story Than Greece?" An excerpt:

But the annual deficit is less of a threat than all those accumulated liabilities: “Looking at the bigger picture, the state has a backlog of about $8.5 billion in unpaid bills and owes about $27 billion in outstanding bonds. And then there’s the roughly $80 billion owed to the state’s public employee pension funds.”

The reported deficit, in other words, doesn’t include all the stuff that should have appeared in past budgets but was hidden in order to get through the next election. How a state with a constitutional mandate to balance its budget can do this in the first place — and how an “unpaid bill” can be excluded from the annual budget — is a question for future prosecutors. But for investors it’s a clear sign that some sort of default is coming.

Illinois may be the worst state (I don't know) but it is not unique. To mix metaphors, bond-buyers keep the whole house of cards afloat until they don't. Few people saw Greece coming 'til it happened. Just saying.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:28 PM

 
Me on Mitchell Hepburn

I have a column in the Ottawa Citizen today about former Ontario premier Mitch Hepburn (1934-1942). Dalton McGuinty overtakes him today as the second longest serving Liberal premier. Hepburn's legacy is difficult to pin down:

Hepburn, if he is remembered at all, is known for making the Dionne Quintuplets wards of the state and symbolic austerity measures such as selling off government limousines and closing Chorley Park, the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor. Although he did much more than that (as one might expect for a premier in office for eight years) it is difficult to summarize a legacy of this erratic and flawed leader who led Ontario throughout much of the Great Depression...

Hepburn is more of an interesting character -- I excluded the story about Hepburn at the King Edward hotel with a pair of girls -- than a transformational leader and there is no such thing as Hepburnism.
posted by Paul Tuns at 4:50 PM

 
Super Bowl XLVI
























I could write less than two dozen words -- "this game is too close to call and recent Super Bowls have been too close to analyse" -- or ten thousand, but something in between and closer to two dozen will have to do. For all the hype of this being a rematch of XLII, this game deserves to be watched in its own right with two teams that have played an elite level over the past month and a half. The Patriots were the best team in the AFC and come into the Super Bowl winning ten in a row. The Giants were written off midway through the season following their seemingly now annual midseason slide (this year taking the form of a four-game losing streak), but are once again in the Super Bowl after winning five must-win games in a row, including the final two of the regular season and three playoff games on the road. How different the Super Bowl might be if the Philadelphia Eagles or Dallas Cowboys had not thrown away one less game at the beginning of the season or if the Pittsburgh Steelers had been able to win one of their two against the Baltimore Ravens. But what-ifs are for children, not analysis.

Sunday's game will be different than the one four years ago: the G-Men's defense isn't as dominating, but Eli Manning is a much better quarterback than he was in 2007-2008. This time around Tom Brady is healthy and the Patriots often rise to the occasion for revenge games. Recent Super Bowls have been close often turning on one decisive (and sometimes fluky) play. For that reason it is somewhat folly to analyze every component of the game; as Joe Posnanski said, "That’s the thing about playing one game for the championship. You can’t really predict one game. Crazy things happen in small samples." It is also difficult to analyze because of the question of how to rate long-term performance (the full season) over recent performance (let's say the last five or eight games, including playoffs). The Giants would be the first team to win the Super Bowl after 1) being outscored during the regular season (-6) or 2) giving up 400 points during the regular season.

You've read or heard much of the analysis: the Giants are a hot team coming into the Super Bowl as winners of five straight, the Patriots had the second worst defense this season, blah, blah, blah, and blah. This ignores the fact that the Patriots have won ten in a row and that if the Giants win, they will have had the worst passing defense and scoring defense of any team to win the Super Bowl. In fact, their 27th-ranked total defense is tied for the previous worst total defense to make it to the Super Bowl (the Buffalo Bills back in the early 1990s when there was 28 teams were once ranked 27th overall in total defense). This Patriots-terrible-defense analysis also ignores the fact that while they give up a ton of yards, they are about league average for points surrendered. It's called a bend-don't-break defense. That said, 26% of Eli Manning's throw were for 16 yards or more (third highest total in the NFL) which could exploit the weakness of the Pats defense, namely the secondary (30th overall against deep passes).

I won't get into an in-depth analysis -- for a good one, see Football Outsiders. The Giants rush the passer with a four-man front -- nothing fancy -- which will allow the G-Men to have the defensive players available to cover the Pats with their five-receiver sets and take away some of the open space for WR Wes Welker and TEs Aaron Hernandez and Rob Grankowski. There are two keys to the game in this dynamic: can the Giants D hurry Tom Brady, who is one of the quickest quarterbacks to make decisions and pass in the NFL and will he find one of Welker, Hernandez or Grankowski if they become open. If one of those Patriots is not getting open or if Brady is hurried, the Giants will win. If they are getting open and Brady is not hurried, the Patriots win.

One real advantage that New York has is very good blocking on both the defensive and offensive lines. But I like Vince Wilfork to handle his assignments. Do yourself a favour and don't always keep your eyes on the ball; watch the line play and the quality of the blocking. Blocking is the key to New York winning.

Both teams have improved their defense as the season progressed -- according to the Cold Hard Football Facts the Pats averaged 477.5 net yards allowed the first four weeks but a more respectable 379.8 the last 14 weeks. Despite some clear statistical advantages, the feel of this Super Bowl is that Tom Coughlin's Giants are going to score the upset over the Pats once again. Indeed, the G-Men are incredibly confident for a team that the bookmakers have as -2.5 underdogs. The stats and predictions models suggest a ridiculously close game that slightly favours the Patriots, but you wouldn't know that reading the traditional football pundits.

I'm going against most of the pundits and betting public and predicting the Patriots will win. The Giants have a number of small but significant advantages and the Patriots need a number of things to go their way -- or the Giants to fail in the execution of things they have recently done well -- to win. Still, I'm predicting the New England Patriots because of nothing more than a hunch which I will justify as faith in Bill Belichick to do something special at some point to surprise the Giants. Predicting a score is folly, but I'm taking the Patriots in a game in which they'll beat the 2.5 point spread.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:41 PM

 
Weekend stuff

1. Centives looks at armies vs. zombies, from the Crusaders to Napoleon, the Nazis to Red China.

2. Scientists say it takes 24 million generations for a mouse to evolve into an elephant.

3. Slate's Bill Wyman: "I Watched Every Spielberg Movie: Now I almost wish I hadn’t." And here is Wyman's rankings of Spielberg's oeuvre. Ignoring niggling complaints, I'd rank Lost World, Last Crusade, and Minority Report higher, Empire of the Sun a tad lower, and Temple of Doom near the bottom. Wyman is exactly right on Saving Private Ryan.

4. Cracked.com's "4 Ways to Enjoy Nature According to Insane Old Magazines," has a misleading title, but the images of manliness from these magazine covers of days gone by are worth perusing.

5. Mother Jones has a slideshow of the best rejected New Yorker cartoons, some of which are much better than the ones that actually gets published, especially the cartoon about the dog and this one about asses.

6. Mental Floss has "6 of the Oldest Trees in the World."

7. Slate answers the pressing question: "Do animals that hibernate get up to go to the bathroom?"

8. For its 100th episode Surprisingly Free has "best of" clips.

9. Female anchor to judge a sausage contest and can't get the right website out of her mouth -- and no, this did not appear on the CBC.


posted by Paul Tuns at 10:55 AM

 
Mother Corp & porn

CBC doesn't like that Sun News and blogger Blazing Cat Fur are pointing out the state broadcaster is peddling porn on taxpayer dime. CBC claims copyright infringement. More like they don't like scrutiny. See Blazing Cat Fur for the offending video -- offensive, that is, to the CBC. If CBC is successful getting the 1:22 clip yanked from YouTube, you can see it here. BCF was having fun on Twitter last night with all this -- check the hashtag #cbcporntitles. My favourite is probably Sharing Lois and Bram.

Post Media columnist Stephen Maher has two responses to the scandal: 1) the porn isn't that bad and 2) Sun News is part of a company that sells porn in Quebec. Of course, this misses the point that Quebecor (through Videotron) doesn't do it with taxpayer dollars.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:25 AM

 
Canadian senator wants to protect the maple syrup industry

A lot of what I hate about politics can be found in this Ottawa Citizen story:

If the proposal put forward Tuesday by Sen. Nancy Greene Raine is sweet enough for her fellow senators, new marketing and labelling regulations could be instituted by this time next year so syrup lovers know that what they're buying is the good stuff...

In Canada, the maple syrup industry produced $349.5 million worth of maple syrup in 2011, according to figures from Statistics Canada, up from $291 million in 2010, an increase of 20 per cent.

She said her other issue is pushing the syrup as a healthy sweetener, replacing refined sugar.

If adopted by the Senate, there could be four classes of syrup: Golden, which is light with a mild taste; Amber, which is full-bodied; dark, which has a stronger taste than its lighter-coloured brethren; and very dark, which has a strong taste and is recommended for cooking purposes.

Anything found to be below "Grade A Maple Syrup" - the pure stuff - would be yanked from retail shelves, Greene Raine said.

The proposal also calls for product labels to include province, state or country of origin to avoid overseas imitations, she said.

The proposal has been unanimously supported by the members of the International Maple Syrup Institute, which first proposed the regulations last year.

A senator wants to protect a growing industry (20% last year). The senator plays the economic equivalent of the race card (labels to have province/national origin). The senator claims it will protect consumers (make sure they get the good stuff). The senator claims health benefits for this special protection (syrup is better than refined sugar). A senator wants to ban specific products (sub Grade-A syrup would be "yanked from retail shelves"). A special interest group backs the plan (the International Maple Syrup Institute). And, of course, the senator is a Conservative.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:17 AM