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.

 
The web makes us richer

Tyler Cowen has a Q&A with Newsweek about his new book, Create Your Own Economy, and this is the takeaway from both the interview and the book:

Human welfare is becoming less attached to wealth than it used to be. It’s quite plausible, for instance, that an upper-middle-class person can be happier than Bill Gates or some other billionaire. You wouldn’t have said the same back in the days of Carnegie and Rockefeller.

The widespread presence of free fun on the Internet has made it very easy for a lot of consumers to limit or postpone their spending. Just stay at home and cruise the Web. That’s made the current downturn steeper, but in the longer run there will be a huge dividend from all these new opportunities.

posted by Paul Tuns at 10:10 PM

 
Importance of property rights

John Robson explains the importance of property rights in this short video:



Important take away point: property rights protect other rights.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:03 PM

 
Four and down

4. Addition by subtraction, the Dallas Cowboys might be better this year after QB Tony Romo dumped distracting girlfriend Jessica Simpson the day before her 29th birthday.

3. WhatIfSports looks at the Minnesota Vikings with and without Brett Favre and finds that he increases their win total by 0.06 from 11.05 to 11.11 (practically the same), winning the NFC North by nearly three games over the Chicago Bears, but scoring a point more and allowing a point more with Favre. Also, they pass a lot more and run a fair bit less. He might help in the post-season depending on who they face and whether they are adept at stopping the aerial game. All very interesting and predictive only if games are played on computers rather than the field. You don't need a computer to guess that Favre would end up throwing more than Tarvaris Jackson or Sage Rosenfels.

2. Chris Brown, "lead journalist" for BuffaloBills.com says that if new WR Terrell Owens replicates the average of his first two seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, he will have 13.5 receptions and a load of other impressive statistics. The idea is that when playing for a new team, Owens produces. Fine in theory, but he was 30 when he joined the Eagles in 2004 and 32 when he was acquired by the Cowboys in 2006. He is now 35 (turning 36 in December). I certainly think Owens is capable of hitting double digit TDs and he no doubt makes the Bills aerial game better (if for no other reason than making it difficult to double team WR Lee Evans who has been blanketed in recent years), but thinking he can recapture the magic of four and six seasons ago to bring them to Ralph Wilson Stadium is wishful thinking.

1. Michael Blunda reports at PFW.com that the Kansas City Chiefs are having a tough time finding TE Tony Gonzalez's replacement. No poop, Sherlock. It will take time but that is part of the rebuilding process, isn't it? If a new tight end is not apparent right now, they'll have time to develop one before the Chiefs are a serious competitor.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:59 PM

 
Three and out

3. SI.com has lists of the 10 most thrilling stars to watch in various sports. Tom Verducci does the baseball list. I'm not sure how someone who hasn't seen Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb play can put them on their list of most thrilling (at best what Verducci has seen are highlights from the careers of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth and I can't imagine he's seen any Ty Cobb), but that is not the worst. The highlight reels make it clear that Jackie Robinson is high (if not number one, very near). Verducci has Rickey Henderson at #5 but he should be higher. But wasn't Roger Clemens as thrilling as Nolan Ryan? Bobby Bonds and Manny Ramirez are as exciting to watch as Williams and Ruth. There is a certain nostalgia going on here as well as Verducci's predictable implicit moralizing about "juiced" players.

2. Joe Posnanski Kansas City Star article on Albert Pujols is worth reading. Pujols has been the player ordained the best player alive after Alex Rodriguez was exposed as a PED user. Pujols would be a superstar if he played in New York, Boston or southern California and his skills and work ethic are undeniable. I don't think even baseball fans realize how immensely talented and fun to watch Pujos is.

1. Mark Fiensand of the New York Daily News says: "With Eric Hinske's arrival and the strong play of both Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner, Girardi plans on using all three in addition to Johnny Damon and Nick Swisher during the second half, setting up a crowded group in the outfield." I wouldn't call a five-deep outfield "crowded" -- I'd call it deep. I'm not sure why this is presented as a problem. Furthermore, Hinkse also plays the corner infield positions, so there is little reason to play Cody Ransom to give A-Rod a rest; such an option makes the outfield less "crowded."
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:49 PM

 
Stuff

1. Here are great movies listed on the New York subway system. What line would you take? I'd take 8 or 15, but 10bis would be tempting.

2. I used to read a lot of history of science in university so I found this slide show of "10 Telescopes That Changed Our View of the Universe" pretty cool.

3. This is quite a funny commercial.

4. Cracked.com has "9 Toys That Prepare Children for a Life of Menial Labor."

5. I'm not sure how Denis Savard and Wayne Gretzky are not on SI.com's list of the 10 most thrilling NHL players of all-time. A case could also be made for Cam Neely and Mike Bossy. The NBA list has the top two right (Michael Jordan and Julius Erving) although a good case could be made for Karl Malone to be in the top five and he wasn't on the list at all. The soccer list would be a difficult one to pare down. Colombian goaltender René Higuita certainly deserves mention, but I'm not quite on board with Lionel Messi and Zinédine Zidane. I'd put Garrincha at number one (not four) and include Rudd Gullit on the list.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:40 PM

 
Stuff

1. The Boston Globe has list of 100 essential New England books. I don't like that no author appears more than once (more Henry James, more Nathaniel Hawthorne) and I have a big problem with the appearance of Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom and the presence of Canadian Margaret Atwood (the fact that she went to Harvard does not qualify her writing as "New England").

2. "Top 10 Misconceptions About The Catholic Church."

3. If you want to know why poker is thrilling, read Nate Silver's account of his last hand at the World Series of Poker tournament. Silver's previous posts from Las Vegas can be found here and here.

4. Do crustaceans feel pain? Advocates for Animals says yes in a 2005 study. I have no idea how I came upon this today.

5. ScienceDaily.com: "Most Neuropsychological Tests Don't Tell Alzheimer's Disease From Vascular Dementia, Study Finds."
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:15 PM

 
Good people and politics

In a Gerry Nicholls post on the federal Conservatives in which Nicholls says the party shouldn't give so much ammunition to a hostile media, one commenter ("Marie") implies that Nicholls is really suggesting that the Tories need to be perfect:

No wonder it is hard to recruit good people, but human imperfect people like us all - to stand for election.

Good people and politics? I'm of two minds about the concept.

1) I'd rather not have good people in politics because a) their presence could lend legitimacy to the state and b) it would be better to have good people doing good things like raising families, running businesses and volunteering for charities, than doing bad things like lording over others, i.e. government.

2) That leads me to my second thought: by definition good people are not in politics. Once you decide to run for office, you are saying "I'm better than you" and "I can rule you." At that moment, you are no longer a good person in my books.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:20 AM

 
Should politicians have to read a bill before voting on them?

Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe:

[Steny] Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, is the majority leader in the House of Representatives. At a news conference last week, he was talking about the healthcare overhaul being drafted on Capitol Hill, and a reporter asked whether he would support a pledge committing members of Congress to read the bill before voting on it, and to make the full text of the legislation available to the public online for 72 hours before the vote takes place.

That, reported CNSNews, gave Hoyer the giggles: The majority leader “found the idea of the pledge humorous, laughing as he responded to the question. ‘I’m laughing because . . . I don’t know how long this bill is going to be, but it’s going to be a very long bill,’ he said.’’

Then came one of those classic Washington gaffes that Michael Kinsley famously defined as “when a politician tells the truth.’’ Hoyer conceded that if lawmakers had to carefully study the bill ahead of time, they would never vote for it. “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,’’ he said. The majority leader was declaring, in other words, that it is more important for Congress to pass the bill than to understand it.

Should pols have to read bills before they pass them? Probably not, that's why they have underlings. But I bet they don't read the bills either.

Jacoby says:

It is no excuse to say that Congress would get much less done if every member took the time to read every bill. Fewer and shorter laws more carefully thought through would be a vast improvement over today’s massive bills, which are assembled in the dark and enacted in haste.

In the column are links to three different initiatives to require members of Congress to read the bills they vote on. It is notable that one specifically addressing health care is sponsored by a conservative group and more general ones are backed by a liberal coaltion and a third by a libertarian outfit.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:10 AM

 
Hold on to your wallets

George F. Will looks at the Democrats' insatiable desire for government spending and programs and then connects the dots to find massive tax increases (VAT, middle class income taxes, etc...) in the near future. If you are in the mood for a shorter read, peak at the first half of the column which shows the folly of even considering a Stimulus Three after Stimulus One and Stimulus Two have been ineffective in preventing unemployment from climbing (with the added feature of increasing the national debt).
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:56 AM

 
Stuff

1. IGN has the top 100 animated shows of all-time. Some very debatable placements, even taking into account personal preferences (I'd put Superfriends in my top five favourite (it is #50) although that is probably an esoteric choice) but Pinky and the Brain at #47 is objectively an injustice because it belongs in the top ten and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is one of the most brilliant cartoons of all-time and warrants a top-half placement.

2. "World's fastest 'everything'." Most the five-plus minutes video is rewarding, especially the cup stacker and gun re-loader.

3. From The Stimulist: "Resolved: The Kid-Coddling Movement Will End." The up-side of the poor economy is that parents are getting tougher with their children. And apparently parents aren't spoiling their kids because they are becoming immune to the marketing of expensive fashions, gizmos, etc... -- or so the New York Times says.

4. "Cyborg crickets could chirp at the smell of survivors" of earthquakes. New Scientist reports that "The Pentagon's priority is for the [mechanical] insects to detect chemical and biological agents on the battlefield, but Epstein says they could be modified to respond to the scent of humans and thus be used to find survivors of earthquakes and other disasters."

5. Restaurants per capita by state. Some are expected (Washington DC tops the list, Utah is at bottom) but there are a few surprises such as Montana near the top and Florida in the middle. (HT: Newmark's Door)
posted by Paul Tuns at 8:42 AM

 
I'm not sure why the Tories are reeling from this story

The Barrie Examiner headline: "PC faithful try to regroup after sex charges surface." Read on and you'll find that the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party revoked the Barrie riding association after its president Sarfraz Warraich, 42, and another board member, Arif Mehmood, 43, were charged with gang sexual assault; Warraich was also charged with attempting to obstruct justice. After going through the whole controversy about the Tories, including reporting that there is nothing new to report, the paper reveals this little piece of information:

Also charged with gang sexual assault are Ashfaq Gondal, 50, of Barrie; Muhammad Sardar, 45, of Barrie; and Zaidy Hussian, 37, of Innisfil. None are linked to the riding association, according to sources.

All five men are scheduled to appear in Barrie court next Wednesday.

An interpreter in Erdu, an official language in Pakistan, has also been requested for the court proceedings.

Were Gondal, Sardar and Hussian also Tories? Is there anything else these five men have in common?
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:43 PM

 
Let Connie know you're out there

In today's Toronto Sun, Connie Woodcock writes about the communion kerfuffle surrounding Prime Minister Stephen Harper and takes a shot at Catholic teaching and faithful Catholics:

Roman Catholics are taught to believe that once consecrated, the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ and all others are excluded from receiving it. It's a peculiar rule and like so much else in that church, one that was manufactured by men not God. If there is one Roman Catholic on the planet in 2009 who actually believes such a physical impossibility in his heart of hearts, I'd be shocked.

There are many such people -- those who spend hours and hours in Eucharistic adoration, for example -- and if you are reading this, please let Ms. Woodcock know you, too, believe this central tenant of the Catholic faith. Contact her by email at connie.woodcock@sunmedia.ca.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:31 PM

 
Stuff

1. The New York Times has "The New Generation of Pizzerias."

2. The AFP reports that a study by TNS Infratest for the Expedia online travel agency ... asked 40,000 hotels worldwide to rank tourists from 27 countries based on nine criteria" and found that the Japanese and Canadians are the best tourists and French, Spaniards and Greeks are the worst. Not surprising, Americans were the most generous spenders and tipper but somewhat surprisingly, they were also likely to try to speak the local language.

3. A Daily Telegraph headline: "Prisoner escapes after switching identity with twin brother." When you read on, it is reported that the men were non-identical twins.

4. Scottish researchers found that wallets containing the photos of infants are more likely to be returned when found.

5. Twitter is perfect for lazy journalists because they no longer have to dig around for stories and do interviews. About half of this AFP story on Lance Armstrong not liking the fact he was tested twice in one day for PEDs is based on his tweets.

6. Mental Floss has "A 10 Fact Salute to Casey Kasem" with some interesting facts (he didn't think much of U2 in 1984 and he voiced Shaggy on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? (although he and the franchise broke up because of his vegetarianism).
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:46 PM

 
The state: everywhere but the bedroom (but it makes the bedroom possible)

A Vancouver letter-writer to the Ottawa Citizen responds to a column about women not having children:

As a young liberal westerner (30 years old) who would love the opportunity to have babies, I can tell you exactly what I need in order to do so. I need the federal and provincial governments to forgive my spouse and I our hefty student loans so that we can finally afford to buy property. (I'd wager that those fecund women in poor countries are not faced with landlords who won't rent to families because of the noise. I bet they pay less rent, too.)

We also need affordable child care so that we can still afford to make mortgage or rent payments once the children arrive. We, unlike women in the developing world, no longer live in multi-generational households where grandparents provide free child care.

As soon as those obstacles are removed, I will be first in line to do my duty reproduction wise.

Over at PWPL, Andra Mrozek nicely dismisses the notion that Rachel Garrick from Vancouver has a harder time getting by than the "fecund women in poor countries" who "play less rent" by suggesting that perhaps the state could also cover our Starbucks. Garrick's sense of entitlement and inability to fathom the challenges women and children in the developing world face is unbelievable. (Or maybe it's not.) But it might not be unique.

A friend of mine who is single that used to live in Toronto said that he had troubles dating because women were married to the state. If they got pregnant and didn't want the child, the government paid for their abortion. If they got pregnant and wanted the child, the government paid for their daycare. If they were sick, the government paid for their health care. If they lost their job, the government paid for their employment insurance [sic]. If they were unemployable, the government paid for their welfare. You get the picture: women don't need a guy. It appears that Ms. Garrick has one but she still wants the government to take care of her and any future little ones and that without the government being there for her, future little ones are impossible.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:29 PM

 
Explaining the bias for the small picture

Robin Hanson says of going on MSNBC to talk about health care reform:

While I think I have a solid grasp of the long-term basics, I feel very conscious of all the things I don’t know about who exactly has just said what about which proposals that may or may not have what features depending on who makes what deals. I suspect the fear of looking stupid on all those ephemeral details detracts most pundits from taking the time to really understand the fundamentals.

posted by Paul Tuns at 12:33 AM

 
Politically speaking, I think this is where I am most of the time

Arnold Kling on Tyler Cowen's different strands of libertarianism says:

My minor strand I call civil societarianism. Collective institutions that are separate from government -- good. Government -- bad. Activities that can be sustained through profits or philanthropic donations can be presumed beneficial, from a utilitarian-ish perspective. Activities that require taxation are sometimes beneficial in theory, but public choice issues make them much less beneficial in practice.

In theory, I can understand certain coercive activities of the state, but in practice I have serious problems with them.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:26 AM

 
Quotidian

Technology, viewed in itself, is ambivalent. If on the one hand, some today would be inclined to entrust the entire process of development to technology, on the other hand we are witnessing an upsurge of ideologies that deny in toto the very value of development, viewing it as radically anti-human and merely a source of degradation. This leads to a rejection, not only of the distorted and unjust way in which progress is sometimes directed, but also of scientific discoveries themselves, which, if well used, could serve as an opportunity of growth for all. The idea of a world without development indicates a lack of trust in man and in God. It is therefore a serious mistake to undervalue human capacity to exercise control over the deviations of development or to overlook the fact that man is constitutionally oriented towards "being more". Idealizing technical progress, or contemplating the utopia of a return to humanity's original natural state, are two contrasting ways of detaching progress from its moral evaluation and hence from our responsibility.

-- Pope Benedict XVI in his new encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate"
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:23 AM

 
Stuff

1. America's most congested cities. Top two: Los Angeles and Washington. Wouldn't it be great if there was even more gridlock in DC?

2. According to the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, in Ethiopia and Cameron 92% of firms pay for private security, whereas in Malawi just 1.3% of companies do. The average in every part of the world excluding OECD countries ranges from 35% in the Middle East and North Africa to 65% in East Asia and Pacific and 64% in Latin America. The OECD average? Zero.

3. HealthScout.com reports that based on studies performed on genetically altered mice, some researchers think coffee might improve memory.

4. Watching the TV news last weekend, I heard the Michael Jackson memorial service was expected to be the most watched event in TV history with a global audience as high as 1.5 billion. Not even close. The Toronto Star reported that the U.S. television audience was 31 million -- fewer than the number of people who watched the funerals of Princess Diana (33.2 million) and Ronald Reagan (35.1 million). Of course, many people would have watched online and there were hundreds of people glancing at the big screens in Toronto Life and Times squares, but not billions.

5. Cracked.com has "7 Classic Star Wars Characters Who Totally Dropped the Ball." C'mon, Darth Vader doesn't make mistakes. And if Vader did blow up the escape pod, there'd be no Star Wars movie or series.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:16 AM

 
Communion kerfuffle

There is some criticism of Prime Minister Stephen Harper allegedly pocketing the Eucharist during the funeral Mass of former governor general Romeo LeBlanc. (See from the Telegraph Journal, LifeSiteNews or Charles Lewis of the National Post.) There are two possible scandals that the media is focused upon: if the PM didn't pocket the communion host given to him by Andre Richard, the Archbishop of Moncton who con-celebrated the Mass, then he consumed the Eucharist which Catholic teaching forbids a non-Catholic to do. The video does not show Harper, a Protestant, consuming the Eucharist, but neither does it show him placing the Host in his pocket. Stephen Harper or at least his protocol office should have known better and not put the prime minister in a situation where he was receiving communion from a Catholic priest. The real scandal, though, is not Harper's or the PMO's. Rather it is the Catholic Church's.

My problem is not so much what Harper did or may have done once he was given the Eucharist but rather that he was given the Eucharist. While I am not happy that the Prime Minister or his staff was unaware of the rules of the Catholic Church, I am critical of the fact the bishop provided him the Host in the first place. The Code of Canon Law is clear:

Pastors of souls and other members of the Christian faithful, according to their respective ecclesiastical function, have the duty to take care that those who seek the sacraments are prepared to receive them by proper evangelization and catechetical instruction, attentive to the norms issued by competent authority (Can. 843 §2).

And:

Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone (Can. 844).

Harper might not know the intricacies of Canon law but Archbishop Andre Richard should have. In other words, the scandal is the primate's not the prime minister's. And it goes beyond merely presenting the Eucharist to Harper, a non-Catholic. If you watch the video, it appears most of those at the state funeral were getting ready to go up for communion. I doubt they were all Catholic. When there is a strong likelihood of numerous non-Catholics being at Mass (such as for a funeral or a wedding), the celebrant should inform the congregation that non-Catholics are not allowed to receive communion although they may present themselves for a blessing. This much was acknowledged by Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisgerber, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops," who is quoted by LifeSiteNews:

I would feel very sorry for the prime minister if he wasn't informed about what the procedure is. I would find it terrible if we put him in an embarrassing situation. My concern is at a funeral of that level everyone knows what the protocol is.

I seriously doubt that a priest or bishop informed non-Catholics at LeBlanc's funeral that they should not present themselves for communion.

If the PM knew he shouldn't have presented himself for the Eucharist, there is no excuse for receiving communion. But his culpability cannot be as great as the man in the collar who had to know he was violating Canon law and his priestly duties.

For Catholics, the Eucharist is vitally important. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes:

[T]hat in the Eucharist the Body and Blood of the God-man are truly, really, and substantially present for the nourishment of our souls, by reason of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, and that in this change of substances the unbloody Sacrifice of the New Testament is also contained.

If you do not believe that, you have no right to receive communion. (Technically, it is not just non-Catholics that should not receive communion, but Catholics who doubt the doctrine or who are in a state of mortal sin because one's soul should not be so stained when receiving Christ.) For Catholics, there is little of more importance that the Eucharist because Jesus Christ is "truly, really and substantially present" in the communion Host. This is what the Catholic Encyclopedia calls "the central doctrine" of the Roman Catholic faith and it is why I consider the clergy's lackadaisical approach when distributing the Eucharist to be an extremely serious scandal.
posted by Paul Tuns at 12:21 AM

 
What I'm reading

1. Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World by Tyler Cowen.

2. The new papal encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) from Benedict XVI.

3. "Locking Up Political Speech: How Electioneering Communications Laws Stifle Free Speech and Civic Engagement," an Institute for Justice report by Michael C. Munger.

4. "The Phoney War on Drugs," a Center for Policy Studies report by Kathy Gyngell.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:55 PM

 
Stuff

1. Male "adult film actor" Ron Jeremy was interviewed by The Independent and he said, "Cherry [my pet tortoise] is very much like my daughter; I'm very close with her. I've had her eight years. She's not the brightest, but she knows me and we cuddle." Am the only one who finds this a strange comment?

2. "Robo-bats With Metal Muscles May Be Next Generation Of Remote Control Flyers," from ScienceDaily.com.

3. How Stuff Works has "Top 5 Green Myths," including "Planting Trees Will Fix Global Warming."

4. Tyler Cowen lists the "main threads in modern libertarian thought" from Cato-influenced to Rothbardian anarchism to Hayekianism.

5. Gary Gulman on Craig Ferguson makes a hilarious point about "The Greeks" who haven't done much in the past 2000 years. "All their work was done by 300 BC ... all the big names in Greek history were done by 300 BC like Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Alexander the Great all by 300 BC. Since 300 BC, John Stamos and Yanni."


posted by Paul Tuns at 5:20 PM