Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics, and sports by Paul Tuns.
I am editor-in-chief of "The Interim," Canada's life and family newspaper, and author of "Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal" (2004) and "The Dauphin: The Truth about Justin Trudeau" (2015).
I am some combination of conservative/libertarian, standing athwart history yelling "bullshit!"
You can follow me on Twitter (@ptuns).
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Sunday, February 29, 2004
The Palestinians' problem Peter Berkowitz has a great essay on Israel's security fence in the Weekly Standard. He talks to a number of Jewish liberals who have come to see the necessity of the fence. At one point, Berkowitz interviews Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab-Israeli journalist who opposes the fence but who also says that the root of the Palestinians' problem is not the fence being erected by Israel but their own leadership, namely terrorist-in-chief Yasser Arafat. "... to him, the fence is only a symptom of the real problem: the Palestinian leadership. ... the cause of the fence, Abu Toameh was sure, was not a desire on the part of Israeli majorities to rule over the Palestinians. If he were an Israeli Jew in these circumstances, he would favor a fence. Real responsibility for the construction of the fence, he is quite certain, lies with Yasser Arafat and the thoroughly cynical dictatorship he brought to the Palestinian people 10 years ago on the heels of the Oslo Accords. But don't the Palestinians recognize Arafat as their legitimate leader? 'Look,' Abu Toameh says impatiently. 'They want independence. They want their own state. But they don't want the corrupt and autocratic regime led by several hundred cronies of Arafat. They are stealing from the Palestinian people. I mean, what has the Palestinian Authority done for the Palestinian people over the last 10 years, since the signing of the Oslo accords? Basically, nothing.' Nothing? 'Yasser Arafat did not build one hospital. Or one school.' Taken aback by his candor, I ask Abu Toameh whether he is speaking precisely. He responds sharply, 'I am responsible for what I am saying. Arafat did not do anything. He did not rebuild one refugee camp. And the question is, one should ask, where did the money go? What happened? I mean, he got billions.' What is to be done? For Abu Toameh the critical first step is clear. 'The Palestinian people's problem is their leadership. The Palestinian people's problem with the Israelis is a completely different issue. That could be solved in the long run. And it will be. But in order to solve that problem, and before we solve that problem with the Israelis, we need a proper Palestinian regime, we need proper government, proper institutions, democratic institutions, we need transparency. Basically the Palestinian Authority today is run as a private business by Yasser Arafat. And some of his aides. We need to liberate the Palestinian people, but from their leadership first, and then from the occupation'." Why the Liberals and NDP will become redundant if Blahlinda wins Conservative leadership Blahlinda Stronach is upset that Conservative Party members are getting phone calls in English. She says in a press release: "It is regrettable because this kind of insensitivity compromises all of the inroads we have made into Quebec. It is also regrettable because it will reinforce the unfair prejudice that our party cannot appeal to all Canadians, particularly east of Manitoba. Our new party must be inclusive and respectful of all Canadians. I am devoted to building and uniting a truly national Conservative Party." Pander, pander, pander to the francophones by feigning, liberal-style, indignation at supposed wrong-doing against favoured minorities. Can Bush take California? Washington Post columnist George F. Will says he might if Republican primary voters choose a socially liberal Hispanic (former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin) for their Senate nominee. I find this unlikely but Will crunches the numbers (how past Republicans have done with women and Hispanic voters, Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity) says it is possible. How important are Hispanic voters? Consider this: "Her biography recently noted her membership in 'the Senate's Hispanic Caucus.' It is nonexistent." Putting the reunion before the last show "They" are already talking about a reunion show for Friends and the last episode of which hasn't even been broadcast. The actresses say no, the actors say yes -- eventually. It is notable, however, that the actresses have had some successes in the movies while the actors have not. Coincidence? For once it is not Conservatives circling the wagons and shooting inwards The Canadian Press reports that the Liberal Party has some nasty fights on their hands, and some much nastier than Sheila Copps-Tony Valeri in Hamilton: "A supporter of Liberal MP Steve Mahoney was in court Thursday demanding criminal charges be laid against fellow Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish for running what he alleges amounts to an illegal lottery. The nasty turn is the latest salvo in a slugfest between the two incumbents for the Liberal nomination in Mississauga-Erindale. Mahoney is accusing Parrish of trying to buy votes by offering party members who turn up to the March 7 nomination meeting the chance to win a $500 door prize. Parrish, in turn, is threatening to sue Mahoney and some of his supporters for libel over an advertisement tells local Liberals they must choose between 'a rude, careless, vulgar Carolyn Parrish or a reasonable, professional and strong MP, Steve Mahoney.' The ad included extensive excerpts from a National Post column, which is currently the subject of a libel and defamation suit filed last year by Parrish. Each of the MPs blames the other for the unprecedented level of animosity in the no-holds-barred contest. But both MPs fear the internecine war is only giving ammunition to the Conservatives to use against the eventual Liberal victor in the coming election, although both maintain a Liberal victory is still likely. 'It's going to hurt me big time in the election,' said Parrish, who angered the Bush administration with her declaration to a reporter that she hates American 'bastards.' 'He has what I would call a scorched-earth policy,' she said in an interview. 'If he can't have the riding, neither will I'." For years, every Conservative (or Canadian Alliance or Reform) fight was public while Liberals were smart enough to have their battles behind closed and seemingly inpenetrable doors. That has now changed. Thankfully. (Hat tip to Andrew Coyne's news tips) Paul Martin the current and next prime minister of Canada Those who think that the Liberals will lose come the next election are substituting wishful thinking for honest analysis. As Anthony Powell described it, they are letting the wish be father to the thought. Toronto Sun columnist Hartley Steward agrees with me that Paul Martin can very likely not only win re-election but have the scandal help him do it. The best historian, RIP Daniel J. Boorstin has died. I have read at least a dozen of his books -- his three volume set on American history is second to none, his books on The Discovers (a history of science), The Creators (a history of the arts, including literature) and The Seekers (a history of philosophy), are absolute delights that reward re-reading and re-re-reading. John J. Miller has a post in The Corner: "The great historian Daniel Boorstin has died. He was a small-c conservative--not a card-carrying member of the movement, but a man whose life and work exemplified many of the things movement conservatives cherish. He wrote about American history because he loved America; he had a strong and contagious admiration for the traditions of Western civilization, and wrote about them as well. The modern academy distrusted him for these habits and affections. The professoriate was also secretly jealous of his success--he was probably one of the most-read historians of his generation. Boorstin knew a good story and how to tell it. His best books are not dry textbooks that chronicle familiar events, but memorable pieces of storytelling and pithy analysis. I'm flipping through one of my favorite Boorstin books right now--The Americans: The Colonial Experience, the first book in an acclaimed trilogy. On the first page of chapter one, I read a sentence I underlined years ago: 'Puritan New England was a noble experiment in applied theology.' Isn't that a perfect summary in ten words? Here's another: The colonial era 'was not an age of genius so much as an age of liberation. Its legacy was not great individual thinkers but refreshed community thinking. Old categories were shaken up, and new situations revealed unsuspected uses for old knowledge.' Sentences like these appear throughout his books. Boorstin was a great writer, a great historian, a great man. We are fortunate to have had him for 89 years." I think it was Boorstin who said that the American Revolution was the first conservative revolution because it sought not something new for society but to reclaim what it was (in England before England became what drove away the eventual American settlers). Boorstin was more the sum of his impressive biography which included posts as librarian of Congress and director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of History and Technology (now the National Museum of American History). By all accounts, Boorstin was not only a great scholar but a wonderful gentleman. His 89 years were too short, but as Miller noted, we are fortunate to have those. The Passion The Daily Telegraph has a good editorial on the movie and the controversy. The two -- the movie and the reaction (or was it preaction considering that most of the complaints were made before the movie was released) -- should be separated. I saw the movie yesterday with my wife and was overwhelmed by it. A bit overwhelmed by the violence which I thought to be excessive but also by the message that God sent his Son to earth to suffer as He did for us, for me. One critic said everyone will respond to the movie differently and I think most Christians will have, as I did, a greater appreciation of the sacrifice God and Jesus made for us. About the controversy over the film's alleged anti-semitism, I can only say that most film-goers would not even realize that the Jews depicted in The Passion of the Christ are Jews if it weren't for all the complaining about the anti-Semitism that preceded the movie's release. As for myself? I had a strong hatred towards the Roman soldiers for their brutal whipping of Jesus which turned into a strong hatred for all of man for the brutal inhumanity that the species sometimes displays such as when it whips a man with shards of sharp metal. I fear that the class of professional complainers among Jews (as a Jewish friend of mine calls them) raising unnecessary flags over non-existent anti-Semitism in The Passion of the Christ are likely to instill a defensive reaction against Jews by otherwise broad-minded Christians who are upset with the over-reaction of the film. Charges of anti-Semitism against those who do not espouse such views are committing a grave wrong. Israeli court obstructs the peace The Associated Press reports that an Israeli court has suspended the building of the security fence for one week. The same story reports: " Israeli security forces arrested three Palestinian youths in the West Bank who planned to carry out a suicide attack out of anger over the barrier, relatives said Sunday. The youths, who were as young as 13, were among the youngest ever arrested for planning suicide attacks. Parents of one of the boys expressed outrage that militant groups had recruited young boys for attacks." Why is anyone surprised? Steyn on the Democrats Mark Steyn in his Chicago Sun-Times column writes about Senator John Edwards (D, NC) but not before landing a pretty good shot on Senator John Kerry (UltraD, People's Republic of MA): "The other day, George W. Bush went to Florida for NASCAR's Daytona 500. His likely Democratic rival, John F. Kerry, did not approve. 'We don't need,' he declared, in the portentous drone he's been perfecting for three decades, 'a president who says, "Gentlemen, start your engines." We need a president who says, "America, let's start our economy".' Hmm. If this is the best material Kerry's high-price consultants can provide, it's going to be a long, long while from here to November. It's unlikely that any but the most partisan Democrats can stomach nine months of a candidate who's Al Gore without the personal charm and affable public speaking style." And because Kerry is the 2004 version of Al Gore, it should be added, it will be a good November for President George W. Bush. Remember he beat the real Gore four years ago. Steyn then addresses the issue of electability, which, one would hope, is the bare minimum a party strives for when selecting its presidential candidates, but which the party forgot about for six months as it flirted with Howard Dean: "So Democrats decided that Kerry was more 'electable.' Which he is, next to Dean -- in the same way that, if Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe entered the Iowa caucuses, Farmer Bob would be Mister Electable. But, once Saddam had thrown in the towel and endorsed Dennis Kucinich, you'd start wondering whether Bob Mugabe was really the best you could do. So, having anointed Kerry as the unDean, a significant chunk of Democrats began looking around for the unKerry." Well, I guess Democrats figured that they do want more than just electable, especially when upon second glance -- the post-Dean glance -- electable is not that ... well ... electable. So now that everyone else has left the dance except Kerry and Edwards (and two really ugly dates: Rep. Dennis Kucincih -- the 2004 version of Jerry Brown -- and Al Sharpton -- the 2004 version of Al Sharpton), the Democrats are left with John F in Kerry (as Rush Limbaugh calls him when he isn't calling him Lurch) and John "who knows his middles initial?" Edwards. (Too change the dance theme to a dating theme: Dean might be the one you go out with for a good time but you don't want to bring him home to meet the parents (the electorate).) So Dean is gone and so are a bunch of others and Steyn says "So the race has come down to a weak default candidate vs. a glamorous insurgent who's not quite glamorous enough to insurge sufficiently." The problem, Steyn identifies, is that Edwards is running out of time: "On the other hand, if Edwards is the unKerry, he's developing a distressing habit of never doing quite well enough. If Edwards were to come in a narrow first instead of a close second, the Kerry bubble would burst: He wins because he's seen as likely to win. Alas, coming a close second is pretty much all Edwards does. He was a close second in Iowa, a close second in Oklahoma, a close second in Wisconsin. The only difference is that coming a close second in an eight-man race in late January is more impressive than coming a close second in a four-man race in early March. Given that Gephardt, Lieberman, Dean and Clark are gone, you'd think it would be impossible for Edwards to come in worse than second, but this week in Hawaii he managed to come a poor third, below Dennis Kucinich." Steyn has some funny lines about there not being much to choose between them (Kerry and Edwards) because both are rich liberals. The difference is that Kerry married his money whereas Edwards sued people for his: "... John Edwards had a dirt-poor, hardscrabble childhood but managed to sue his way out of poverty. He's made 25 million bucks just from suing tobacco companies. His is an inspirational message: If I can do it, the rest of you haven't a hope in hell. But fortunately I've got a thousand new government programs and micro-initiatives that will partially ameliorate your hopeless mediocrity. (I paraphrase.) My favorite line in the Edwards spiel comes about two-thirds in, when after outlining the regulatory hell in which he's going to ensnare banks, the pharmaceutical industry, etc., he confides, ''But I'll be honest with you. I don't think I can change this country by myself.'' It's good to know the other 280 million Americans aren't entirely redundant. His basic pitch is that the entire electorate are victims and his candidacy is the all-time biggest class-action suit on your behalf." Remember, Kerry and Edwards are the best the Democrats got. I'm looking forward to November. Friday, February 27, 2004
Light blogging Lots of catching up on other stuff this weekend. Expect light to no blogging. Ditto for Paulitics. Yes, I know that every other time I have said this I have gone on a blogging rampage. But this time it is different. Mader on drugs David Mader has an excellent post on U.S. pharmas being rightly upset with the cross-border drug trade. In two paragraphs he brilliantly summarizes why Canada should not let Canadian wholesalers ship pharmaceutical drugs back into the U.S. If we don't, we are likely to be paying more for our prescription drugs and we can hardly afford to do that. Thursday, February 26, 2004
If it's not about abortion, it's about race For the last six election cycles (at least), the Democrats seem obsessed with two issues: abortion and race. The latter made it's way into the Democratic debate tonight on the issue of capital punishment. Senator John Kerry supports executing criminals convicted of terrorism-related charges. Senator John Edwards used the issue to pander to blacks; the AP reports, "Edwards, a Southern-bred politician, differed, saying there are other crimes that 'deserve the ultimate punishment.' He cited as an example the killers of James Byrd, a black man who was dragged to death from a pickup truck in 1998 in Texas." Kill a black, lose your life; kill a whitey, go back home to your wife. Just joking, but not by much. Quote of the day Amy Henry, a contestant on the NBC hit show The Apprentice (aka, The Donald Trump Show) on why Martha Stewart is one of her heroes: "You gotta love a woman who knows when to buy, when to sell and when to bake." Quote of the day Amy Henry, a contestant on the NBC hit show The Apprentice (aka, The Donald Trump Show) on why Martha Stewart is one of her heroes: "You gotta love a woman who knows when to buy, when to sell and when to bake." The Caribbean community is upset with the Conservative Party of Canada Or at least one black journalist who presumes to speak for the entire Caribbean community. But then again, according to the Globe and Mail, a Conservative MP or two, Blahlinda Stronach and former Tories are also upset. The article proves why the Conservative Party is better without Scott Brisson than with him; the turncoat says "These guys really need sensitivity training ... It's unacceptable for political parties to reinforce racial stereotypes." The ads themselves sound remarkably like TV and radio commercials by the Barbados government and travel agencies promoting the islands as a travel destination. If anyone should be upset with the ads it should be Paul Martin for the legitimate skewering he gets over registering his CSL ships in Barbados (2% taxes) instead of Canada (with tax rates of up to 41%). Steyn on U.S. politics Mark Steyn on the War on Terror being the only election issue in 2004, from the current Spectator: "America, it’s said, is divided into September 11th people and September 10th people. I’m in the former category. I’m a single-issue guy. All the other stuff can wait. Not all of us single-issue guys are Republicans. There’s a category called ‘9/11 Democrats’, though nobody’s quite sure how many there are. They include, up to a point, the Blues Brother Dan Aykroyd, who’s campaigning for his dream ticket of Bush ’04/Hillary ’08. ‘Let this administration finish this war and this fight against terrorism,’ he says. ‘If Bush is re-elected, then Hillary is set up to run for President in 2008. I’ll be there with my band to help her. Then we’ll have the glory days back for the Democrats.’ Sounds good to me, at least the first part." Steyn dissects Senator John Kerry's non-position on the issue and then turns to the other senator named John running for the Democratic presidential nomination: "For Edwards, the only enemy in the Middle East is Halliburton, which is code (barely) for Bush and Cheney. Unless, of course, he’s implying that German and French firms aren’t getting a fair shot at the reconstruction contracts, which is certainly a tenable position, though not one that a guy campaigning against the rampant ‘outsourcing’ of American jobs can logically make. Edwards has nothing to say about the war, and nobody seems to mind." Passionately hating Mel and Dubya Maureen Dowd, the not-as-clever-as-she-thinks-herself-to-be columnist of the New York Times, begins today's waste of editorial page space thusly: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Mel Gibson and George W. Bush are courting bigotry in the name of sanctity. The moviemaker wants to promote 'The Passion of the Christ' and the president wants to prevent the passion of the gays." And it goes downhill from there. Not if God supported Stockwell Day in 2000 Liberal attack dog Warren Kinsella relates a conversation on mortality he has with one of his children on Ash Wednesday (scroll down to February 25): Four year old, wailing uncontrollably: ?We don't want to die!? Me: ?It's okay. It won't happen for a long time. And then we'll all be together in Heaven.? Kinsella is a little presumptious. Magazine misidentified Andrew Sullivan sees everything -- I mean everything -- in terms of the same-sex debate. So when The Economist endorses same-sex marriage, he tries to score points against conservatives such as President George W. Bush by calling the British magazine conservative. Classically liberal, probably; conservative, hardly. Senator misidentified Senator Bob Graham (D, FL) was identified thusly at the end of a column on Haiti he penned for the Washington Post. He should have been identified as "Senator Bob Graham desperately wants to be the vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in 2004." WaPo editorial on The Passion Predictably, the Washington Post finds it sets back Christian-Jewish relations to the pre-WWII times. But in an editorial? Nordlinger on Watt James Watt was President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior -- the John Ashcroft of his age, in Jay Nordlinger's delightfully and accurate description -- and he recently was NPR. Nordlinger provides this exchange: NPR: "Mr. Secretary, let me pose to you, if I can, the point of view of some environmentalists. When you talk about states' rights, I think what some environmentalists hear is the concept that there are companies that want to develop land, that want to change the land, that want to mine; who have difficulty with federal environmental regulations. . . . They listen to 'states' rights' as environmentalists, and what they hear is 'more strip mining,' basically." Watt: "That's a false assumption. You have framed the question as it has been framed, and it's framed in error and intentionally framed in error to whip up a fight. Reasonable people can balance the demands to use the people's land, the federal lands . . . And that requires that some of the lands be set aside as wilderness, and some lands need to be mined for coal. And common sense and reasonableness can reign if we can limit the influences of the selfish interest groups from across the spectrum, from left to right, from industry to purist preservationists who think only a 22-year-old with a backpack is entitled to see a national park." Pro-life reaction to Conservative Party leadership race Here's an analysis I wrote for The Interim -- a wonderful socially conservative newspaper of which I'm the editor-in-chief -- on the Conservative Party leadership race. The Interim, like Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of the Canadian pro-life movement, is not endorsing a leadership candidate, instead urging readers to back the pro-life candidate in their individual ridings. The analysis's conclusion: "When it comes to social issues in the political arena, Canadians need a real choice. Sadly, the choice will not be stark enough, regardless of who wins. Fortunately, a good many Canadians, if they look past the leaders of the parties, will find many pro-life candidates running for seats in Parliament, who are deserving of support." John Kerry is an idiot This is not quite Idiot Hall of Fame material but it is close. Jay Nordlinger finds it odd that Senator John Kerry would say, "I think George Bush is on the run. And I think he's on the run because he doesn't have a record to run on." Nordlinger's reaction: "What a queer thing to say. You may deplore George Bush's record, as the Democrats do (and as some Republicans do) — but it is undeniably a record! The War on Terror, including the toppling of two governments; sweeping tax cuts; the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act; missile defense; education reform; immigration reform; the prescription-drug entitlement; the faith-based initiative; etc. Odd that a candidate should think he has to say the other guy has no record, when the raison d'être of the first guy's candidacy is to oppose and overturn the record of the other guy." America should remember that Bush has "no record" when Kerry criticizes what Bush is alleged to have done in his first four years as president. Getting gay married, breaking the law Upon getting hitched in San Francisco, former TV gabber Rosie O'Donnell said "I want to thank the city of San Francisco for this amazing stance the mayor has taken for all the people here, not just us but all the thousands and thousands of loving, law-abiding couples." Law-abiding? The city is in violation of state law in granting marriage licenses to homosexual couples, so whatever may be happening in S.F., it is not law-abiding. As for the "amazing stance" of Mayor Gavin Newsom, as Jon Stewart noted recently, standing up for same-sex marriage in San Francisco can hardly be described as bold. "It just might get him re-elected," said Stewart. Teachout on American Beauty I a long post about Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, Terry Teachout has this great line about American Beauty and the Oscars: "American Beauty offered easy answers to loaded questions (that’s why it won so many Oscars—Hollywood only gives prizes to movies that tell us what it wants to hear) ... " Will Clinton's legacy be an increase in mouth cancer? Earlier this week I noted a University of Alberta story about the increase in STDs on campus there because many students are having oral sex and not considering that sex. Well, such behaviour may lead to an increased risk of mouth cancer. Researchers at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France have uncovered evidence that oral sex can cause mouth cancer. Reuters reports "They found that patients with oral cancer containing a strain of the human papilloma virus (HPV) known as HPV16 were three times more likely to report having had oral sex than those without the virus strain." The New Scientist reports that "The researchers think both cunnilingus and fellatio can infect people's mouths." Wednesday, February 25, 2004
More on The Passion LifeSite Daily News has a long list of at least 35 positive reviews and commentary about The Passion of the Christ, including articles by Cardinal Pell, Peggy Noonan, Linda Chavez, Rabbi Gellman, Rabbi Lapin, Cal Thomas, Charles Colson, Dr James Dobson, First Things, Michael Novak and other NRO writers, and Billy Graham. Johnson on Dubya British Tory MP and Spectator editor Boris Johnson writes in his Daily Telegraph column (he has too many jobs) that there are many British Tories who don't like President George W. Bush. He lists some of the good reasons for such dislike (Bush's protectionism) and the not-so-good reasons (Bush's alliance with Prime Minister Tony Blair) and concludes that even if it is for just one reason, British Tories should support Dubya: "And yet if Al Gore – or Kerry – had won the last election, the Taliban would surely still be cutting off people's hands. Saddam would still be monkeying around with the weapons inspectors – to heaven knows what end – and keeping his people in a sadistic tyranny that might have lasted another decade or more. You could also argue, and no doubt the venerated Steyn will do so, that Bush's radical action in Iraq has prompted a welcome softening of the other Middle Eastern hard cases, notably Libya and Syria, and perhaps Iran. That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me ..." That, it seems, is the view of American conservatives right now and I think it is the right one. Post-September 11 America needs a post-September 11 president and Bush is the only who understands what that entails. Sowell's random thoughts Thomas Sowell offers another of his always enjoyable Random Thoughts columns. Random and sobering. The first two: "People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything"; "My New Year's resolution is to stop trying to reason with unreasonable people. This should reduce my correspondence considerably." Okay, one more: "No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers." Sir Malcolm Rifkind will be back The Daily Telegraph reports that John Major's talented Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind will run for the Conservatives in the safe Tory seat currently held by retiring Michael Portillo, Kensington and Chelsea. Rifkind lost in 1997 and his return will do much to improve the seriousness of the flagging Tories. Charles Adler on the Blonde Ambition Tour Radio host and Winnipeg Sun columnist Charles Adler wonders "Is Belinda Stronach simply Brian Mulroney with higher heels and more peroxide?" Ouch. His column on what kind of trouble both the Conservative Party of Canada and Canada will be in if Blahlinda is selected (I chose the word carefully) leader of the Conservatives and elected Prime Minister of Canada, begins with 10 thoughts that sprang to mind while watching Belinda bot at the debate on the weekend: 1) If she wins, who is going to believe that the result was legitimate? 2) How do the Conservatives benefit from years of Liberal corruption, if the Conservative leadership process is bogus? 3) Why is the bot still talking about baking cakes? Who does she think she is? Aunt Jemima? 4) When is she going to shut up about having run a company with more than 70,000 employees? 5) Who on Earth believes that she ran that company or any company? 6) When I asked her to offer me a single example of a decision that she had to make at Magna, didn't she give that same old nonsense about how she has good values and wants to listen to fresh ideas? 7) When will a financial journalist do the forensic work to prove once and for all that the bot was never a CEO except in name only? 8) Why were Magna shareholders completely indifferent about her resignation? Was it because they knew that she was never a hands-on leader and so it would make no difference? 9) Did the bot have her hands on anything at Magna outside of race horses, golf clubs, brie, caviar and champagne? Mum's the word. 10) Since the grassroots in Western Canada simply cannot take the Belinda bot seriously as a Conservative leader, what would prevent them from wanting to pull the pin and march down the road of western separatism? Paul Martin, fiscal conservative Or, Hey big spender Canada's federal government, led by the fiscally conservative Prime Minister Paul Martin, will spend $186.1 billion next year, an increase of 6% over previous estimates for spending this year and twice the rate of inflation. Conservative Party finance critic Monte Solberg helpfully reminds us that this is an election year and that the new spending might be Liberals purchasing votes (my characterization, not his). For those interested in watching Canadian-style fiscal conservatism/Liberal vote-buying close-up, there is a list of the spending increases. Highlights include $759-million for agriculture, $574-million in foreign aid, $564-million to cover public servants' job benefits, $446-million to support health research, $186-million to meet Canada's Kyoto commitments, $63-million to improve air quality, $54-million to protect the environment in national parks, $170-million to help the homeless, $128-million to improve housing for low-income families and $127-million "to spruce up the Toronto waterfront." Now, $63 million here, $186 million there, some $759 milllion there and all of a sudden it is $10 billion in new spending. Thank God Martin is a fiscal conservative or Canada wouldn't be able to afford all this government. One Passion-related post Lots of reviews, lots of commentary out there. Here's the scorecard for the four Toronto dailes: Toronto Star and Globe and Mail gave the film one star, the Toronto Sun called it boring and the National Post gave it three reviews. On the web, even more review and commentary. Best comment comes from Michael Graham in The Corner: "And yes, Mel Gibson's 'Passion' does stir up anger against those responsible for the Crucifixion: After the movie, I wanted to kick the crap out of a Roman. The Roman soldiers are the hate-inspiring baddies in this movie, not the leaders of the Jewish political cabal who seek Jesus' death. Gibson portrays them as clearly shocked by what, in their theological view, is blasphemy." Graham goes on to ask what movie were reviewers who complain about anti-Semitism watching. But let's go back to that last paragraph. There were neocons -- "the Jewish political cabal" -- in Jesus's time? Nonetheless, The Passion of the Christ, says Graham is a good film. Not a tool for evangelism, nor an enjoyable movie. But, "a powerfully-told film of a story so powerful it has defined the central tenets of Western thought. If it were up for Best Picture Sunday night, I would give it my vote. It's a better movie than 'Return Of The King.' Having said that, I'd rather see ROTK twenty more times than see 'The Passion' once again. I'm glad I've seen it, but I can hardly say it was an enjoyable experience." Emotional BS from AS Andrew Sullivan links his support for the War on Terror to his love of America which is rooted in his love for its Constitution. Now with President George W. Bush endorsing a Federal Marriage Amendment, Sullivan is ticked. And ... what? He won't support the War on Terror because the U.S. Constitution might be amended to protect it from judicial terrorists in the People's Republic of MA and elsewhere? Sullivan says "I still believe passionately in taking this war to that enemy, of not apologizing for the United States, of opposing appeasement and weakness in the face of evil." But is his passionate belief lessened because the United States doesn't want homosexual relationships -- relationships that have as their defining feature sodomy -- legally recognized. He implies that the U.S. fought a Taliban abroad but now faces a Taliban at home which is further proof that as good as Sullivan is at times on the War on Terror and a handful of other issues, he is not immune to his own silliness at times, including all the times he discusses homosexuality. Notes on blogging 1) Mark Cameron finds that Canadian blogging has come of age with a number of "real" journalists (Andrew Coyne, Paul Wells) joining a fray that already included Colby Cosh and others. Coyne/Wells are Canada's Sullivan/Kaus. So anyone for starting up a Canadian Corner? 2) Terry Teachout posts his policy on linking and crediting other blogs for links. Generally good policies which I have generally tried to follow: "(1) If a story has already been widely linked throughout the blogosphere, we don’t usually attempt to give credit for the original link. (Aside from everything else, we don't always know who spotted it first.) (2) If the story appeared in a widely read print-media publication such as the New York Times, we generally don’t give credit, either—that is, unless the blogger in question dug a tidbit out of that publication that might otherwise have gone overlooked, or enhanced its interest by commenting on it in a memorable way. (3) In all other cases, we credit the blogsource. (The formula I most often use is 'Courtesy of blogsource.com…') Do we slip up on occasion? Sure. I often bookmark stories cherrypicked from the blogosphere, and by the time I get around to looking at the bookmarks, I’ve sometimes forgotten where I found them. But that’s a mistake, not a policy. Whenever we can, we credit the source." 3) In the same post, Teachout says that there is now a blogging communtiy (yucky word but good idea): "Of all the many things that make blogging a truly new medium, the most important is linking. As I remarked in my much-discussed notes on blogging, 'Blogs without links aren’t blogs.' Linking transforms individual blogs into a larger community—a blogosphere—whose members freely share ideas and readers with one another, and in so doing increase their own value." As he later says, linking is good for everyone in the blogosphere. 4) In a different post, Teachout again discusses linking and community, and mentions what I have (quite inaccurately in all but the description) referred to as incest among bloggers: "Interesting, too, is the intensity with which certain bloggers continue to express their loathing for the way in which certain other bloggers make friendly mention of one another. Clearly, this reflects a divergence of taste that no amount of civility will narrow: some folks just don’t like it, and that’s that. Me, I like it very much, and I don’t see it as clubby or exclusionary, much less snobbish. Sure, I have my favorites, but without exception they’re people whom I got to 'know' in cyberspace, solely and only through their work (though I’ve been lucky enough to meet a half-dozen of them in the flesh, and hope to meet many more). They’re my cast of characters, and I try to write about them in such a way as to make my readers want to get to know them, too. As I’ve said more than once, I think that’s part of the fun of blogging—not just for bloggers themselves, but for those who read us as well. It personalizes blogging. It strengthens the feeling of community. Above all, it encourages our readers to visit other blogs." Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Baseball quote of the day One reason why I like baseball so much is that all the important things in baseball are important in life. As George F. Will explains: "Baseball is a severe meritocracy, an arena of exacting, unforgiving competition, in which there is a direct correlation between the amount of luck you have and the amount of work you do. Over 162 games it is not luck that matters. What matters is a passion for excellence." Yet another plea for the Israeli security fence A column by Roger Alpher in Ha'aretz, has a quote from the widow of one of this week's suicide bomber's victims: "I want to tell the entire world not to close your eyes. Don't ignore this the way they ignored the Holocaust." It is a great column that buys/doesn't buy the Holocaust analogy but ends up arguing that you cannot at the same time oppose the terrorism against Israel and be against the security fence: "In the current climate, her perception is not considered out of touch with reality. She [the widow] is expressing a prevailing existential truth. Israel is the victim of terror, eternally. The world always 'stands aside.' And dares judge." British Tories are redundent, Part 631 The British Conservative Party wants to become more BBC friendly. The party will not be nominated for any Profile in Courage awards. As the Daily Telegraph reports: "A report on the BBC's future commissioned by the Tories under Iain Duncan Smith was given a lukewarm reception by the leadership after Michael Howard decided it was too politically risky to endorse. The detailed recommendations put forward by a panel chaired by David Elstein, the former Channel Five boss, were described by senior Tories as 'brave' - Westminster code for politically dangerous. Party managers will study the reaction of focus groups before deciding whether to endorse any of the findings." Brave is the adjective given to ideas that have no hope of being endorsed by a conservative politician. Paulitical stuff California Democratic primary and a Nebraska Congressional race are today's items at Paulitics. Great day at The Corner Lots of posts by lots of great contributors at The Corner on The Passion of the Christ and the Federal Marriage Amendment. Best post, however, is Rod Paige's apology for calling the National Education Association a bunch of terrorists: "It was an inappropriate choice of words to describe the obstructionist scare tactics the NEA's Washington lobbyists have employed against No Child Left Behind's historic education reforms. I also said, as I have repeatedly, that our nation's teachers, who have dedicated their lives to service in the classroom, are the real soldiers of democracy, whereas the NEA's high-priced Washington lobbyists have made no secret that they will fight against bringing real, rock-solid improvements in the way we educate all our children regardless of skin color, accent or where they live. But, as one who grew up on the receiving end of insensitive remarks, I should have chosen my words better." If the NEA had the capacity for embarrassment, it would have preferred if Paige had just left it at terrorists. Good question The Derb on FMA in The Corner: "Can someone please tell me (A) Which civil right homosexuals citizens currently do not have ..." Playing games with kids John J. Miller posts this on The Corner: "Derb: Just read your excellent column on playing Stratego with your 8-year-old boy in the current NRODT. I grew up playing the game with my grandfather, a man with a soft spot for Napoleon because he came from French stock. I'd be curious to know your theory on letting children win games such as these in order to keep their interest alive while they learn. I'm still teaching my 6-year-old son the finer points of checkers. Sometimes I go ahead and beat him, sometimes I let him work us into a draw, and sometimes I let him experience the joy of victory--but I know he'd be crushed if I told him the truth. I really want him to clobber me one of these days, and I'm sure he will. But I'm eager to move on to Risk and Stratego and Axis & Allies--and have him whip me at those games as well." This is interesting. Most people who let kids win do it for their, the kids, self-esteem. I've never bought that. In fact, I generally destroy my young opponents in whatever game we play so that they can learn 1) to lose, 2) that just because they're kids they are not entitled to win, and 3) when they lose repeatedly, that life is unfair. When I was in my late teens I was babysitting a four-year-old cousin and I beat him at Mickey Mouse dominos. He looked up and said, 'P.T., you're supposed to let me win." I vowed then to never let a child win, lest they learn the wrong lessons (that adults should let kids win). However, I think Miller has a point; that a mixture of victory and loss will instill an interest in the game and the desire to learn more about it, play it and thus perfect it. Surprise New York Times doesn't like The Passion of the Christ. To be honest, Christ probably doesn't like the New York Times. Critic A.O. Scott says: "'The Passion of the Christ' is so relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours that this film seems to arise less from love than from wrath, and to succeed more in assaulting the spirit than in uplifting it." Why? "His version of the Gospels is harrowingly violent; the final hour of "The Passion of the Christ" essentially consists of a man being beaten, tortured and killed in graphic and lingering detail. Once he is taken into custody, Jesus (Jim Caviezel) is cuffed and kicked and then, much more systematically, flogged, first with stiff canes and then with leather whips tipped with sharp stones and glass shards. By the time the crown of thorns is pounded onto his head and the cross loaded onto his shoulders, he is all but unrecognizable, a mass of flayed and bloody flesh, barely able to stand, moaning and howling in pain." Mel Gibson made this film, in part, because Christians (and others) must realize how much Christ suffered for those he saved. Being crucified is, to put it mildly, unpleasant, but not as unpleasant as the fact that Christ died because we are sinners. Neither of these are messages the Times wants to contemplate. The best short comment on the film comes from Bruce Clemenger, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada: "The movie confronts viewers with the price of human redemption ... Gibson has given us a powerful and graphic portrayal that will dispel our often sanitized images of Christ’s death." But you wouldn't get such seriousness from the Times. Profile in ... anything but courage Tony Clement, running for the leadership of the Ostensibly Conservative Party of Canada, criticized Blahlinda Stronach for suggesting that Canada might consider some alternative to the universal (read: universally bad) healthcare system. Blah blah Blahlinda on making Canada the gosh-darn best country in the world Today, Blahlinda Stronach went to the Empire Club and outlined a plan "to improve the living standards of Canadians and to bring to this country a level of economic prosperity that we have never yet fully realized." My first instinct is to suggest that Blahlinda trade in her pin-stripe pant-suits and get a cheerleading outfit and start rah-rahing for Canada, or at least for the conservative tax-cut crowd. But I won't do that because it might be considered sexist and I don't think single mothers should be cheerleaders. Blahlinda has some specifics (the creation of "a Citizen's Evaluation Committee that would identify areas to reduce government spending and overhead") and several tax cuts (eliminating the tax on capital investment, lowering personal and corporate taxes) -- for which she should be applauded. But the CEC is gimmicky and tax cuts are not the easy sell conservatives and the punditocracy think they are because candidates must convince Canadians that tax cuts won't mean less healthcare and environmental protection and all the other programs Canadians have come to love and rely on. It would be nice to know what rates Blahlinda thinks taxes should be pegged at and what programs will be cut to begin the process of not just trimming the fat but cutting Leviathan down to size. But there is still almost a month left in the campaign and, to be fair, none of the candidates have shown such boldness and specificity. Wells on Logan. Wait. Who's Logan? Paul Wells blogs about a story that appeared in the weekend Globe and Mail predicting, as it often does, the imminent demise of [insert publication here]. This week it is Maclean's. Donna Logan, chair of the University of British Columbia journalism program, is quoted in the Globe, saying "I don’t hear any buzz about [the magazine] ... And there was a time when I did." Wells responds: "Leaving aside the most obvious question — when in history has anyone heard any buzz about Donna Logan, chair of the University of British Columbia Journalism program? ..." Wells also has a handy comparison of elements of the weekend story and a similar story that appeared in 1999. Apparently Laidlaw is not the only one recycling newspaper material. Monday, February 23, 2004
Judicial activism to replace diplomacy? Moshe Ram, Israel's Consul General to the Midwest, based in Chicago, writes in the Detroit Free Press that the International Court of Justice in The Hague should not hear the case about Israel's security fence because in doing so the ICJ undermines diplomatic talks to find a peaceful solution to the hostilities between Israel and its Palestinian neighbours and perhaps all conflict negotiations: "In taking this case, the ICJ would also be giving a green light to further attempts to bring the dispute piecemeal to the court and thereby completely circumventing the negotiating process. This would set the dangerous precedent that the disposition of other regional conflicts could well suffer the same fate: conflict resolution by judicial decree rather than mutual agreement." Baseball quote of the day A 1950s edition of Who's Who in Baseball on Bill Nicholson of the Chicago Cubs: "He has been in the clutches of a prolonged batting slump for three seasons." Daifallah on democracy's friends in the Middle East Adam Daifallah has an important column in the New York Sun on the generally shabby Western treatment of Palestinian democracy activist Issam Abu Issa and Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi (it is mostly about the former but makes a good comparison to the view of Chalabi in the West). Daifallah says "The two aforementioned men represent the type of leader America needs in the Arab world. Both have stuck their necks out for democracy." The Empire of Liberty will not succeed until America supports its allies in the Middle East a whole lot better than it currently is. Pork barrel politics Robert Novak of the Chicago Sun-Times has a good column examining the row between Congressional Republicans and President George W. Bush over a highway spending bill. Bush is threatening his first veto, Congress wants money for the home district. Novak says Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert "wants to avoid a veto, which would put his beleaguered Republican House members on the spot in a veto override vote, forced to choose between conservatism and concrete." Statistics prove need for Israeli security fence The Jerusalem Post reports at the end of this story on yesterday's suicide bombing that since September 2000, there have been 101 successful suicide attacks, 149 unsuccessful suicide attacks ("terrorists who either blew only themselves up or were apprehended while on the way to carrying out a suicide attack"), 584 suicide attack deaths. Independent is a 'vanity term' Jonah Goldberg reacts to Andrew Sullivan's reaction to the news that Ralph Nader is running as an independent presidential candidate: "If you want to call yourself a moderate or a centrist, that's cool. But to suggest that only independents are in the 'sensible center' is simply not true. Independent is a vanity label which includes everybody who considers himself or herself outside the authority of philisophical or political labels, and is therefore, largely meaningless when it comes to substantive first principles." From Sex and the City to feminism's basement Several times today in The Corner Jonah Goldberg mentions Sex and the City and concludes one post thusly: "I see 'Sex and the City' as being part of much larger cultural trend which includes everything from the Vagina Monologues to all the feminists who once went batty at even the faintest whiff of sexual harassment who suddenly celebrated Monica Lewinsky as if she was the Joan of Arc of sexual liberation. Remember those idiot-harridans, for example, in the New York Observer who thought the real scandal was that the President didn't wear a condom when he was mentoring his intern senseless?" Baseball quote of the day "There are three things money can't buy -- love, happiness and the American League pennant." -- Former Baltimore Orioles owner Edward Bennett Williams. Miller on Mel Larry Miller, the Daily Standard's resident humourist, praises Mel Gibson's passion and his movie The Passion of the Christ. It is worth reading the whole thing but two snippets. The first on Mel's passion that led him to pay $30 million out of his own pocket to get the movie made: "What I'm getting at is that even the richest people in the world don't just plunk chunks of dough down like that unless they're powerfully committed to something. Like God and faith." On the alleged anti-Semitism of The Passion: "OKAY, I guess we might as well jump to the sixty-four thousand dollar question: Did 'The Jews' kill Jesus? Well, first of all, if they did, the whole nefarious scheme doesn't seem to have worked out quite the way they planned, does it? In fact, just a few years after the skullduggery, those wily Christ-killers were shattered and scattered to the four corners of the Earth, where they spent the next two thousand delightful years getting blamed for every nosebleed and crop-failure in the village and constantly, repeatedly, neverendingly, being tortured and murdered in the most horrible ways imaginable. (Say, wait a minute. Kind of sounds like what happens to the guy in the movie, doesn't it?) And let's not forget the "wow" finish sixty years ago, and the 'Always-leave-'em-wanting-more' encore today on every bus in Jerusalem. Like yesterday. Well, I think it's enough. It's not for me to say, of course, it's for God. But I think it's enough. Or, as we Jews might say colloquially, 'Enough, already.' ... Should 'The Jews' be blamed for what guys named Pilate and Caiaphas did so long ago? The question's actually moot: We already have been. The question is, what will happen now? Every Christian is my brother and sister in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. I am shoulder to shoulder with every Christian who believes the United States is and should always be A Light Unto The Nations, and who believes the same about that other, older, much smaller, and much maligned Light Unto The Nations. Don't pee on my leg and tell me its raining John Leo has a fun column on euphemisms. Everyone knows "transfer tubes" (body bags) and "wardrobe malfunction" (publicity stunt) but what about "War on Terror" (War on militant Islam), "temporary steel safeguard measures" (tariffs) and "dehiring" (firing). My two favourites: A Catholic high school in Australia calls priests "mass presiders" and an Olympic official called bribes to other Olympic officials "payments, I think, to encourage good feelings about Salt Lake." I'm not sure, however, if Leo isn't making some of them up when he writes about the small print to describe fees you might have to pay at the hospital: "Some medical euphemisms now appear in the fine print of your staggeringly large hospital bill. You may see charges for 'disposable mucus recovery systems' (Kleenex), 'thermal therapy' (a bag of ice) and an 'oral administration fee' (the charge for handing you a pill in a paper cup). A dose of three pills, though delivered in a single paper cup, may require three separate oral administration fees." The state has no place in the grocery carts of the nation Boris Johnson had a great column this week on the anti-fat Nazis in England and a proposed program to get Brits to eat their veggies. He says "... Health Secretary, John Reid, this week announced his sensational plan for Veggie Vouchers. Yes, under reforms to the 63-year-old Welfare Food Scheme, 800,000 people will be given special vouchers by the social services, which they will be able to redeem at groceries and supermarkets for vegetables and fruit." Johnson says that rhetoric about an obesity epidemic aside, there is no need for further nannying: "The fatness epidemic is not something that can only be 'cured' by the intervention of doctors or government. The cause of the epidemic lies entirely in our own volition. This is how the fatness epidemic spreads. You go to the fridge; you take out that Onken biopot yogurt, with the little barley grains to make it seem somehow more dietetic; you eat, and you repeat. The cause of the fatness epidemic is not society, or poverty, or government failure. It is millions of fatties deciding after lunch that they might just have room for an extra large Kit Kat." Blahlinda Stronach may be romantically linked to Bill Clinton but she talks like Al Gore Blahlinda Stronach's performance in the debate today has been described as wooden. Her closing statement about why she would make a good leader sounds like a Grade 6 back-to-school essay on what she did over her summer holidays. "I ran for the leadership of a political party. I am qualified for this job. I worked hard in my previous job. I like meeting new people. Please vote for me." Okay, it is not quite that bad, but read her closing statement. (I challenge you not to laugh when you come to "I can harness the hunger Canadians have for change.") Once I read them, it came to me that Stronach speaks in the same, platitudinous and meaningless, short, condescending sentences that former Vice President Al Gore always used. On the eve of a hearing in the Hague, suicide bombers make the case for security fence The Washington Post reports that Hanan Michaeli, 90, a survivor of a suicide bomber's attack in Jerusalem today, said: "When I got off the bus myself, I looked at it, saw how destroyed it was, and saw that it was like the bus they are sending to Holland." The Post reports: "Israel has shipped the wreckage of a bus destroyed in a previous suicide bombing to The Hague, where on Monday the International Court of Justice begins three days of hearings on the 450-mile fence complex Israel is building through and around the West Bank. The bus will be put on public display to show why Israeli officials believe the fence is necessary." Perhaps instead of the blown-up bus, Israel should have sent body bags. Two more poignant comments by Israelis who tire of Western criticism of Israel's insistence that on defending itself: David Ben Hamu is 75 and was sitting in the front row of the bus that exploded earlier today: "I think that a bus has to be sent to The Hague now -- even the bus from this morning -- so they understand that as they protest the fence, people are dying ... Somehow these people have to understand the lesson. I almost died this morning because the fence has not been completed." Jerusalem's mayor Uri Lupolianski: "In The Hague, they are going to argue that the government doesn't have permission to build the security fence ... But the question is not of permission, it's of necessity. It's vital that the government protect its own citizens." Israel will not placate its enemies and critics by committing suicide. As the Daily Telegraph editorial notes today, "Faced with a choice between international disapprobation and more Israeli deaths, Mr Sharon has understandably opted for the former." NDP desperation watch The NDP links Paul Martin and Brian Mulroney because both were involved in scandals. I remind readers that NDP Leader Jack Layton, when he was a city councillor, was involved in a scandal himself: he and his wife/shack-up/whatever, city councillor Olivia Chow, (combined salaries of roughly $200,000) lived in subsidized housing all the while complaining that there was not enough public housing for the poor. Why Israel needs a wall I am becoming impatient with people who watch the atrocities committed against Israel by suicide bombers on television from the safety and comfort of their living rooms in Canada, the United States and Europe condemn Israel for wanting to build a security fence. Such critics do not understand how precarious the existence of Israel is in general and how vulnerable that country is to suicide bombers in particular. The New York Times reports on the latest attack in which 8 were killed and at least 50 injured when a suicide bomber struck a crowded bus in Jerusalem. Said one witness: "People fell out, bodies fell out, parts of bodies." While Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades took responsibility for the attack and claimed it was in retaliation for building what they called the "Nazi wall," such attacks prove that such a barrier is necessary. Will politics get in the way of solving Toronto's crime problem? You bet. It is difficult to improve upon Meatriarchy's analysis of Mayor David Miller's approach to seeming to do something about the crime problem plaguing Toronto that just four months ago Miller said did not exist. (He criticized his political opponents -- mayorial candidates John Tory and John Nunziata -- for exaggerating and exploiting the crime issue for political gain.) Meatriarchy says: "Toronto Mayor David Miller who was elected on a begging platform - 'Elect me and I promise I will ask Ottawa for lots of money' Has been blindsided by reality. Namely crime. Despite the fact that our friends in Ottawa are spending 2 billion dollars to register the guns of hunters in Newfoundland and Alberta the city of Toronto is awash in gun violence. Miller like any good NDP stalwart has decided to do the only thing that seems correct (notice I didn't say right) to him. He has formed a committee to study the problem." So instead of doing something, Miller seeks to appear to do something, which in politics usually delivers a bigger payoff. Meatriarchy quotes a news story about Miller forming a committee to study the problem ("He has asked Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry to chair an advisory panel on community safety, aimed at finding 'solutions to gun-related violence, with a particular focus on youth'.") and asks, "Why bother when it seems that the Mayor has already decided what the solution should be?" And what will be the solution? Social programs that address the "social conditions that breed crime." Meatriarchy proposes that addressing the "social conditions" include dismantling public housing and lobbying the federal government to scrap the $2 billion gun registry program and start getting serious about border security. I share Meatriarchy's enthusiasm for such policies but doubt doubt that it will happen. Instead, as Meatriarchy notes, "there will be a lot of feel good programs (mostly focusing on racism you can bet) that will come out of this but none will stop the problem. Teenagers get into gangs because it is exciting and because the criminal activities are lucrative. Having everyone finger paint and do paper mache isn't going to help one bit. Not as long as their musical heroes are extolling the virtues of 'thug life' and 'pimping'." Paper mache is unlikely to be a useful weapon against the criminal class. But Toronto's mayor is too polite -- too politically correct -- to do what is necessary to fight crime. Meanwhile, Right On blog notes that as Miller's committee chats up crime, crime keeps happening: "bullets keep flying" and "kids keep dying on the street. Here is a partial list of Pulse 24 news crimes stories from this weekend alone: another violent weekend in Toronto, an alleyway death, two more victims, violent jewellry store robbery, robbery and assault at an ATM machine, ... I better to double check my security alarm. Independent finds novel way to criticize Bush The Independent opens its story about President George W. Bush's pooch passing away thusly: "Spot the dog is dead. The White House said President George Bush's imaginatively-named English springer spaniel was put down at the weekend after suffering a series of strokes." The paper is making fun of what Bush named his dog 15 years ago. This is just sad. Progress on the War on Terror I wonder what Mark Steyn, who has long thought bin Laden was dead, will say about this: Australia's Sunday Telegraph reports that the Sunday Express reports that US forces have surrounded Osama bin Laden. An un-named US officials says ""He (bin Laden) is boxed in." The long-awaited October surprise might be sprung a little earlier. Sunday, February 22, 2004
Baseball quote of the day "Beneath the strife and turmoil of the baseball business, the game -- the craft -- abides. It is a beautiful thing, the most elegant team sport." -- George F. Will Schramm on Sartre Peter Schramm, executive director of the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, on youth being wasted on the nothingness of Jean-Paul Sartre: "I wasted much of my time during my undergraduate days, but not all of it was my own doing. Among the least interesting books I had to read (more than once) was Sartre’s 'Being and Nothingness,' and 'Nausea,' and the others. Many of my profs thought themselves ever-so-deep existentialists, and forced us to read what turned out to be Nothing. In short they were fools and knaves and their offense is rank. While I wasn’t a rocket scientist, I still had a nose and knew what crap smelled like." This pretty well confirms my view that Sartre is for people who have pretenses to be intellectuals. More on the Conservative leadership debate David Mader adds to Adam Daifallah's comments on the leadership debate: "Stronach was much worse in person." If she performs poorly against Stephen Harper and Tony Clement in front of a largely friendly crowd, how will she do in front an ambivalent (at best) Canadian electorate against the tested Paul Martin and Jack Layton? I thought it was conservatives who were supposed to be stuck in the past In his Chicago Sun-Times column, Mark Steyn says: "It's been said that America is divided into Sept. 11 people and Sept. 10 people. The former category are those for whom Sept. 11, 2001, changed everything. The latter are those for whom Sept. 10, 1972, changed everything. That's when Bush didn't show up at the Air National Guard base because he was dancing naked on a bar in Acapulco with Conchita the surly waitress. Or whatever. If you think this is the most important issue facing America, feel free to vote for John Kerry, who back in 1972 was proudly serving his country by accusing its armed services of committing war crimes. Or whatever. Like I said, I can't get my head round the whole retro this-is-the-aging-of-the-dawn-of-Aquarius scene. Meanwhile, there's this whole other war going on, the one Bush has to attend to while everyone else is on cable TV talking about the early '70s. This war has an ambitious aim: the transformation of the most dysfunctional region of the world. You can't do it overnight. But, 10 months after the liberation, it should be possible to discern a trend, and right now all the Middle Eastern dominoes are beginning to teeter in the same direction." Steyn then describes how things are going, which can summed up: better than before the US liberated Iraq. It is said that generals always want to fight the last war. So, apparently do Democrats. But this election will be about 2004, not 1972. Kerry -- or, at least his supporters -- focus on what happened more than three decades ago because they don't want American voters to notice what isn't happening now, namely any seriousness on the part of Democrats about the September 11 World with which the next US president must deal. Again, Steyn: "Bush wants to take the war to the enemies, fight it on their turf. Kerry wants to do it through 'law enforcement': If the Empire State Building gets blown up, he'll launch an investigation immediately. It's not enough. Even if Bush was AWOL 30 years ago, on everything that matters John Kerry is AWOL now." Who is responsible for adscam? I have seldom subscribed to the view that Canada is in the mess it is mostly because of our elected officials. I think that our elected officials are catering to the wants of the elected. Peter McKenna, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Prince Edward Island, touches upon this idea in a column on political patronage in the Halifax Herald: "Still, if we really want patronage to end, we need to stop thinking only about ourselves and refrain from demanding that our politicians deliver it. And we need to make our national election campaigns less about image, appearance and personal style (the stuff of advertising agencies and media handlers) and more about leadership, vision and issues." As Menken said, democracy is the theory of government that people should get what they want and get it good and hard. Sobering Thoughts on TV I'm on TV tonight on CTS (Crossroad's) Behind the Story. BTS is on from 7-8 pm and I'm on with Libby Stephens of the Toronto Star and Dan Brown, formerly of the National Post now with CBC.ca. CTS is broadcast on channel 9 in Toronto. We're talking about adscam and human cloning. Mader on Nader David Mader has this stinging but I think absolutely true comment about Ralph Nader's narcissistic independent run for the presidency: "Nader is now running not for the country or for the issues but for himself. As folks come to realize that, they'll be uninclined to give him much support." Analysis of Conservative debate Adam Daifallah has some thoughts. I especially liked his take on Blahlinda Stronach's use of "platitudinal terms like 'innovation'." Innovation, innovative, etc... are words used by politicians who want to appear forward-thinking but have nothing substantive to offer. Good of Daifallah to call her on it. Clinton's legacy A University of Alberta study finds that one in four students at that particular body of higher learning will get a sexually transmitted disease at some point in their educational "career." Some education. The most poignant line from this Edmonton Sun story comes at the end with a quote from Judy Hancock, health education co-ordinator with the University Health Centre: "You've got kids who are having oral sex, consider themselves abstinent, and they're getting STDs. But they don't get checked for it because (they believe) they're not having sex." Shea on Bush on SSM As most of the media reports that President George W. Bush has come out strongly against same-sex marriage, Mark Shea titles his link Bush's announcement "Bush Vows to Think about Contemplating Beginning to Start Considering Actually Doing Something about Gay Marriage--Cautiously." The Houston Chronicle story reports that the White House is practicing the usual White House hand-wringing that substitutes for substantive action: "White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush recognized that gay marriage is a divisive topic. But, he said, "this is an issue where he believes it is important for people to stand up on principle." On Wednesday, Bush met with 13 Roman Catholic conservatives. They included Deal Hudson, the publisher of Crisis magazine and a friend of Bush political adviser Karl Rove; William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for President Reagan; and Kathryn Jean Lopez, associate editor of National Review magazine. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the president spoke to the group about the gay marriage issue and a wide array of other topics. Bush reiterated his pledge to back a constitutional amendment "if necessary," Duffy said." But, it should be noted, Bush offered nothing but a maybe, possibly, if necessary course of action if it is determined that something might need to be done. Friday, February 20, 2004
Baseball quote of the day Yogi Berra once said "I really didn't say everything I said." Everyone loves Yogisms, but this one is especially useful for most politicians. Good news from Conservative Party Yesterday the Conservative Party of Canada rejected former Saskatchewan Premier Grant Devine's application to be a candidate for them in Souris-Moose Mountain. The party offered no explanation but it is assumed that it is because members of his government (more than a decade ago) were embroiled in scandal which never implicated Devine himself. The Globe and Mail has just reported that the local riding association has approved him as their candidate. Devine is a serious candidate and an unadjectived conservative. He will be a great addition to the caucus/government(?). Author foresaw Adscam 130 years ago "A certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places." Did Anthony Trollope envision the 2004 Liberal Party of Canada in 1874? Actually, it is Trollope's description of the increasingly decadent lifestyle of London's aristocrats in his The Way We Live Now, but it fits the Liberal Party under Paul Martin (and Jean Chretien and John Turner and ...). Canada's funniest export is Mark Steyn Forget about Jim Carrey and the others -- apparently I have because I can't recall one other Canadian humour refugee -- the funniest Canadian abroad is Mark Steyn who dissects Canada's humourlessness in today's Wall Street Journal. A taste: "Just for the record, Canadians are not humorless. We're humourless, OK? And in case you're planning a trip, jokes in Canada are not illegal. They're just federally regulated. And a good rule of thumb is this: We're not humorless about Anglophone Canada. Want to make a cheap crack about curling, or the queen, or redneck Albertans? Feel free. But we are humorless about Francophone Canada." Thursday, February 19, 2004
Notice anything strange about Blahlinda's blog? Two things actually. First, if you have watched closely (that is, visited regularly) there were no posts for about two weeks after February 3 and then all of a sudden blogs for February 5, 6, 8, 9 etc... magically appeared. This strikes me as blog cheating. You shouldn't be allowed to back-date when blogging. Second, having recently read several high school essays, I find the similarities between Blahlinda's blog writing and the style of the average Ontario high school student really quite frightening. Consider for yourself this post from Newmarket, her home town: "After nearly three weeks on the road ? it was great to be home again! I spoke at the Newmarket Community Arena, just around the corner from where I attended high school. We had a tremendous turnout of more than 500 people, including some old friends, neighbours and family members, and hundreds of new people. I spoke about my roots in the riding of Newmarket-Aurora (I grew up in Newmarket and currently live in Aurora). I told the residents who came out to meet me that I would be proud and honoured to serve as the first ever Member of Parliament for the newly created riding. I also said that I would be a strong voice for the riding in Ottawa. I feel that today marked a truly sad day in the history of Canadian politics. The release of the Auditor General?s report revealed a Liberal contract scandal that was far worse than many of us had ever imagined. I called on the Liberals to pay back the money it received from communications companies involved in this scandal to Canadian taxpayers. I also called for the Chief Electoral Officer to investigate all other Liberal Party financing to ensure that no taxpayer dollars ended up in the hands of the Liberal Party." I change my mind, it is not high school writing. Blahlinda's posts read more like Grade 6 first-day-back-to-school "what I did on my summer holiday" essays. Now Blahlinda, go do your math homework. You'll figure out that you don't have the votes to win the leadership. Youth and politics: the disengagement is a good thing Almost no one is opposed to the idea of getting young people involved in politics but very few people understand why. Some think it is because young people see little hope in political solutions or something like that, and indeed there is some truth to such explanations. So there a great many people who dream up ways to get young people involved, or at least give lip service to such goals. Blahlinda Stronach, a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada is no different: "It was great to see so many young people at Pier 21 last night for our 'Belinda Rocks' event in Halifax. Our young people are this country?s greatest natural resource. I stressed my commitment to support postsecondary education by allowing both parents and students to deduct post-secondary tuition from their income tax. I also expressed my desire to get young people re-engaged in government and politics and enthused about public service. Young Canadians have a very important role to play in the new Conservative Party as well. I have called for the creation of an active official youth wing in the new Conservative Party. I also promise to meet regularly with the Party's youth and continue to rely on their ideas, energy and ideals. We are on the verge of some fundamental changes to the political landscape in Canada, and now is the perfect opportunity for new members, especially our youth and new Canadians, to join the Conservative Party and help drive that change." If you are anything like me, you had to wake yourself up right after "was great to see so many young people" and shake your head at "our 'Belinda Rocks' event." I am sure it was and I'm sure she does. But about young people getting "enthused" about politics by which she means care about politics: younger people don't care because what government does doesn't affect them as much (i.e. they don't get taxed extraordinarily high when they start their careers and few would pay tax until after university anyway. If you want young people to start voting, tax the first cent they make at 50% and they'll care about what government does with (what was once) their money pretty darned quickly. I find being disengaged from politics a blessing; how nice not to have what government does affect your daily life enough that you can afford not to pay attention to it. Trudeaupia on adscam Trudeaupia has one of those "I'm a Nigerian widow with business opportunities to spare" spam scams: Request For Urgent Business Relationship FIRST, I MUST SOLICIT YOUR STRICTEST CONFIDENCE IN THIS TRANSACTION. THIS IS BY VIRTUE OF ITS NATURE AS BEING UTTERLY CONFIDENTIAL AND 'TOP SECRET'. My name is Paul and I was the Minister of Finance in a corrupt one party state. Jean and I have $100 million dollars trapped in our joint account at a Caisse Populaire in Shawinigan. I urgently need your assistance in freeing these trapped funds. You see this corrupt one-party state isn’t corrupt any more. Oh, no. We are an honest, transparent, forthright government committed to the highest ideals of government service. Together we stand on the edge of the future, where the politics of achievement will unleash potential hitherto unimagined. But first, there’s the matter of the money. I have to get rid of it before the public inquiry finds it and I need your help. Do NOT send your banking information (What do you think this is, some Nigerian scam?). No, just bring a bunch of empty suitcases and take this letter to your local RCMP and they’ll set you up with a non-government account. They’ll close the account and destroy the evidence after the money has been transferred and you’ve packed the suitcases. You might want to rent a pickup truck to carry them. Don’t worry about getting the police involved, they’re on the side of the good guys. They’ve done this sort of thing before. Then all you have to do is take the money down to the port of Montreal and put in on the next CSL ship bound for the Caribbean, and the Captain will give you your commission on the transaction. You can recognize the ship easily; it’s the one flying the Liberian flag. Oh, and you might want to bring a translator who knows a bunch a Third World languages. These ships are staffed with a bunch of illiterates, but once you’ve delivered the message they’ll know to which tax haven they have to go. They’ve made this run with the other $161 million. But please hurry. I need your help with this urgently Your friend, Paul Ed Broadbent has a blog For the masochistically inclined, you can read Ed Broadbent's blog. Really. The former federal NDP leader and back to the future candidate blogs, or at least someone blogs in his name. But considering this banality (from a February 16 post), I think Ed does the work himself: "The last few weeks have been full of activity... thanks to my campaign team, who seem to keep my schedule full and my time occupied ... I've met some wonderful people so far on the campaign trail - from the families and young volunteers at the Eid Festival at Lansdowne Park, to the leaders from the Somali and Chinese communities, to the students at the Carleton and UofO pub night." First, it is nice to know that Broadbent is trolling for votes while students are boozing it up. Second, I read this three times before I didn't read it as "UFO pub night," although I would guess that Broadbent would have similar levels of success. Lastly, Somali and Chinese events, the Eid Festival. What, Ed, only three groups to which to pander in all of Ottawa? Blatch on Adscam While I am obviously partial to Legacygate (because its mine), I think it is a good idea for the Canadian bloggers to follow Andrew Coyne's lead on this one and call the scandal Adscam. But I also think that whatever it is called, it will not matter for long. Globe and Mail columnist Christie Blatchford seems to agree. On Tuesday she wrote: "For all the outrage there would seem to be in the land at the federal Liberals now, my hunch is that it will not last, and that once again, I will get the government that many of you deserve." Canadian voters may now assume the position. Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Baseball quote of the day "America's pastime is one place where Marx's labour theory of value makes much sense. The players are the central, indispensible ingredients in the creation of considerable wealth ... Not one fan will pay, or tune in to the broadcasts now earning baseball more than half a billion a year, to see an owner." -- George F. Will, August 18, 1991 column "Marvin Miller: Sore Winner" in Bunts. What happened in the world of Paulitics Two important Tuesday votes are looked at in Paulitics: the Wisconsin primary (including the bursting of the Dean internet bubble) and Kentucky's special Congressional election. Senator Dean Edwards New York Times columnist William Safire says that Senator John Kerry is successful in part because he has taken some of both of his primary opponents, Howard Dean and Senator John Edwards, and made it part of candidate Kerry: "the Massachusetts senator has stolen Dean's antiwar resentment and adopted John Edwards's cheerful soak-the-rich pitch." Interestingly, Safire says that Democrats could turn on Kerry, husband of a widow worth at least a half-billion dollars, favouring the faux populism of Edwards rather than the really faux populism of Kerry. Novak on K'ism I have always thought that no matter how more efficient capitalism is than the alternatives nor how prosperous free economies are compared to non-free ones, the best case for free markets is moral: it is right that human beings be free. Michael Novak has an extended essay -- a speech actually, that he delivered to the Mon Pelerin Society in Sri Lanka (read that again ... the Mont Pelerin Society in Sri Lanka -- ain't globalization grand) -- that makes the moral case for capitalism. You should read the whole thing but Novak includes the top 10 moral advantages of capitalism that are worth reading: l. The rise of capitalism would break the habit of servile dependency, and awaken the longing for personal independence and freedom. 2. It would awaken the poor from isolation and indolence, by connecting them with the whole wide world of commerce and information. 3. It would diminish warlikeness, by turning human attention away from war and towards commerce and industry. It would, as Adam Smith writes, introduce "order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived almost in a continual state of war with their neighbors, and of a servile dependency on their superiors." (The Wealth of Nations, III, iv.4). 4. It would bring the peoples of each country and of the whole world into closer, more frequent, and complex interaction, and stimulate them to learn of new goods and new methods through international exchange. 5. It would mix the social classes together, break down class barriers, stimulate upward mobility, encourage literacy and civil discourse, and promote the impulse to form voluntary associations of many sorts. 6. It would mightily augment "human capital" by inciting the emulation of new specialties, skills, and techniques. In addition, it would impart new tastes, and encourage the pursuit of new information and new ways of doing things. 7. It would teach the necessity of civility, since under the pressures of competition in free markets, dominated by civil discourse and free choice, sellers would learn the necessity of patient explanation, civil manners, a willingness to be of service, and long-term reliability. 8. It would soften manners and instruct more and more of its participants to develop the high moral art of sympathy. For a commercial society depends on voluntary consent. Citizens must learn, therefore, a virtue even higher than empathy (which remains ego-centered, as when a person imagines how he would feel in another's shoes). True sympathy depends on getting out of oneself imaginatively and seeing and feeling the world, not exactly as the other person may see it, but as an ideal observer might see it. This capacity leads to the invention of new goods and services that might well be of use to others, even though they themselves have not yet imagined them. 9. It would instruct citizens in the arts of being farsighted, objective, and future-oriented, so as to try to shape the world of the future in a way helpful to as large a public as possible. Such public-spiritedness is a virtue that is good, not merely because it is useful, but because it seeks to be in line, in however humble a way, with the future common good. 10. Finally, it is one of the main functions of a capitalist economy to defeat envy. Envy is the most destructive of social evils, more so even than hatred. Hatred is highly visible; everyone knows that hatred is destructive. But envy is invisible, like a colorless gas, and it usually masquerades under some other name, such as equality. Nonetheless, a rage for material equality is a wicked project. Human beings are each so different from every other in talent, character, desire, energy, and luck, that material equality can never be imposed on human beings except through a thorough use of force. (Even then, those who impose equality on others would be likely to live in a way "more equal than others.") Envy is the most characteristic vice of all the long centuries of zero-sum economies, in which no one can win unless others lose. A capitalist system defeats envy, and promotes in its place the personal pursuit of happiness. It does this by generating invention, discovery, and economic growth. Its ideal is win-win, a situation in which everyone wins. In a dynamic world, with open horizons for all, life itself encourages people to attend to their own self-discovery and to pursue their own personal form of happiness, rather than to live a false life envying others. I think that in some cases the moral advantages of capitalism (reducing envy) are not the same thing as the moral case for capitalism but what a wonderful list. Store it mentally and zing do-gooding and sanctimonious anti-free market lefties with these points. |