Sobering Thoughts |
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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.
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Sunday, July 31, 2005
Weekend List 12 best U.S. think tanks (non-regional) 1. American Enterprise Institute 2. Heritage Foundation 3. Manhattan Institute 4. Cato Institute 5. Competitive Enterprise Institute 6. Hoover Institute 7. Claremont Institute 8. Pacific Research Institute 9. Acton Institute 10. National Center for Public Policy Research 11. The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity 12. Hudson Institute Independent gobbles up 7/21 suspect's claims The Independent assumes that Osman Hussain, a suspect in the failed 7/21 terrorist attacks in London, is telling the truth. Shame on them for their gullibility and leading off their story thusly: "A suspected member of the 21 July bomb cell has told investigators he was motivated by the Iraq war, not religion." That is what they would say, wouldn't they? The Independent also reports that Hussain claimed 1) he never had contact with al-Qaeda, 2) that he decided to "send a signal" to Brits after watching video coverage of "women and children" being killed in Iraq, 3) he had no intention of killing Brits in the 7/21 attacks and 4) the 7/7 attacks convinced him that he was right to send a "message" to London about Iraq. It is unclear when The Independent will change its name to The Stooge. Another Bush victory Keeping in mind that we must take a wait-and-see approach to anything the IRA says, assuming that the Irish terrorist organization is serious about turning its back on violence as a means to political ends, the credit must, at least in part, go to President George W. Bush for the seriousness with which he has led the United States and its allies to confront terrorism. That is not quite the point this London Times editorial makes but it does recognize that politically motivated violence -- terrorism -- is untenable in the post-9/11 world: "One reason for the IRA statement is that since the events of September 11 the world has changed profoundly. Terrorism is being seen for what it really is right across the West. The moral and financial support that the IRA drew from credulous Americans has dried up. Its involvement in the biggest bank robbery in Britain proved yet again that it was little more than a criminal organisation. Its responsibility and behaviour in the aftermath of the appalling murder of Robert McCartney revealed its true colours to anyone who still had any doubts. The IRA campaign of violence is another victim of Osama Bin Laden’s global jihad. The atrocities perpetrated by the Islamists, who seem increasingly to resemble the bizarre cults that have emerged in the West in recent decades, put politically motivated terror beyond the pale." Another award for Morgentaler Last month, the University of Western Ontario disgraced itself by bestowing abortionist Henry Morgentaler with an honourary doctorate. This month, the 74th annual Couchiching Conference will give its 2005 Couchiching Award for Public Policy Leadership to Morgentaler in recognition of his advocacy of abortion "rights." CTV reports that "The Couchiching Award is presented to a nationally recognized Canadian who has demonstrated leadership in a public policy field, often in the face of public opposition, and whose initiatives have had a positive impact on Canada or a community within Canada." A press release from the Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs said, "Through the direct and measurable impact that Dr. Morgentaler has had on public policy, he exemplifies the high level of leadership required of award recipients." The two previous award winners are former finance minister Michael Wilson and author Jane Jacobs. Is the Couchiching on Public Affairs serious that of all the Canadians to recognize for leadership, Morgentaler is, effectively, one of the top three that come to mind? What about Fraser Institute founder Michael Walker who has forced Canada to think about taxes, government spending and its healthcare system, former prime minister Brian Mulroney who gave Canada the US-Canada free trade agreement or former Ontario premier Mike Harris who restored some fiscal sanity (reducing taxes, reforming welfare and balancing the budget) to the province. The decision to honour Morgentaler, a man who broke the law and invited the courts to determine abortion policy (admittedly, the Supreme Court of Canada suggested that Parliament re-write the abortion law but politicians dropped the ball on that one), is to reward the circumvention of democracy. 10 worst baseball trades of all-time There is about 30 minutes left until the waiver-free trade deadline for Major League Baseball. No general manager will make a move as bone-headed as any of the 10 listed by Elliott Kalb, author of Who's Better, Who's Best in Baseball?, at Fox Sports. Kalb lists the reasons but here are the 10 worst trades. 1. Cincinatti Reds give up Christy Mathewson for New York Giants' hurler Amos Rusie 2. St. Louis Cardinals get Lou Brock from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Ernie Broglio and Bobby Shantz 3. Philadelphia A's send Nellie Fox tothe Chicago White Sox for Joe Tipton 4. Atlanta Braves got minor leaguer John Smoltz from the Detroit Tigers for Doyle Alexander 5. New York Mets send young Nolan Ryan out west for Jim Fregosi 6. Arizona Diamondbacks steal Curt Schilling from the Philadelphia Phillies for Omar Daal, Nelson Figueroa, Travis Lee, and Vicente Padilla 7. Boston Red Sox steal Curt Schilling from the Arizona Diamondbacks for Casey Fossum, Brandon Lyon, and Jorge de la Rosa 8. New York Giants send tempermental second baseman Rogers Hornsby to the Boston Braves for Shanty Hogan and Jimmy Welsh 9. The Houson Astros send Joe Morgan, Jack Billingham, Cesar Geronimo, Ed Armbrister, and Denis Menke to the Cincinatti Reds for Lee May, Tommy Helms, and Jimmy Stewart 10. The Mets got Steve Henderson, Dan Norman, Pat Zachry, and Doug Flynn from the Cincinatti Reds in return for Mr. Franchise Tom Seaver I think that any of the honourable mentions could be switched with the Smoltz-Alexander deal. Sure the Tigers gave up on a young pitcher too early -- Smotz won 174 games (and counting) and saved 154, but Alexander went 9-0 down the stretch in 1987 and the Tigers made the post-season. Not a great trade but one that served the Tigers' immediate purpose. A picture is no substitute for a policy Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler was the only journalist at the Abu Shouk refugee camp in Darfur during the visits of three US officials (then Secretary of State Colin Powell, current Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick and the current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice). Kessler says, "while the senior officials change, there's a certain sameness to the events at this perennial photo-op location -- the same visuals, same points, same war." And, as Kessler notes, "For the people who live here, a photo op just doesn't do much to end the suffering." At this one camp, oen of more than a 100, 80,000 people served as the backdrop for a "campaign-style" photo op. Batman Begins' anti-capitalism undertones Matthew Hisrich of the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions in an article at FEE Today says that Batman Begins is anti-capitalist and anti-capitalism in its assumptions about big business and therefore how business is depicted in the film: "Batman Begins manages to undermine both capitalism and freedom by displaying a deep discomfort with those who engage in business, reinforcing stereotypes of nineteenth-century capitalistic production and promoting the concept that the answer to crime and corruption is greater force rather than greater liberty. Director Christopher Nolan and screenwriter David Goyer effectively employ flashback sequences throughout the film to cast Bruce Wayne’s father Thomas as a saint-like figure. While some of this could be dismissed as merely the perspective of a grieving son, clearly they are also used to develop key plot points regarding his father’s character. Specifically, we learn that Thomas Wayne chose to disassociate himself from Wayne Industries—the family business—and instead pursue the more noble profession of medicine. In one scene he grins at his wife and tells young Bruce that he has left the company to 'more interested men.' Viewers later learn that he does have at least one role within the business—spending its money. The butler informs Bruce that Thomas nearly drove Wayne Industries into the ground financing a massive public transportation system that Thomas claims would “bring the city together” during an economic depression. While there is certainly nothing wrong with philanthropy, the implicit message is that such actions are morally and economically superior to running a successful business. Wayne Industries is presumably the largest employer in Gotham, but never once is the firm’s success or failure mentioned as a determinant of economic stability or the foundation of the elder Wayne’s philanthropy. Bankrupting the company by pouring money into a monorail is hardly the best way to benefit those in need of jobs and security. Thomas Wayne is no Andrew Carnegie. In fact, as Ludwig von Mises explains in The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, 'Nobody is needy in the market economy because of the fact that some people are rich. The riches of the rich are not the cause of the poverty of anybody. The process that makes some people rich is, on the contrary, the corollary of the process that improves many peoples’ want satisfaction'." Hisrich also looks at the city's enforcement of laws and says that corruption is typically the result of bad laws not a "lack of civic spirit, as personified by commitment to the collective will." Hisrich concludes: "The solutions Batman Begins offers to Gotham’s struggle with economics and ethics are thus 1) redistribution of wealth and 2) a violent 'crackdown' on those engaging in trade deemed unacceptable. Is this a message that should excite those passionate about free markets? A film truly rooted in the market philosophy would instead suggest that what struggling cities need is more capitalism and liberty—not less." Saturday, July 30, 2005
Never-ending nannying SkyNews reports that the British Advertising Standards Authority want advertising for alcohol to use less good looking men: "Drinks companies have been ordered to use uglier men in their advertising campaigns. The Advertising Standards Authority believes "balding" and "paunchy" men would be less likely to encourage women to drink to achieve social success. The new advertising code stresses that links must not be made between alcohol and seduction." And indeed the ASA is already enforcing its advertising code, criticizing Lambrini, a producer of sparkling drinks, for a print ad that showed three women "hooking" a good-looking young man. SkyNews reports the ad is a "parody of a fairground game." The ASA told Lambrini, "We would advise that the man in the picture should be unattractive - ie overweight, middle-aged, balding etc," so that there is no link between drinking and seduction implied in the ad. How is Lambrini taking this? Quite sensibly, actually. Lambrini questioned the ASA's authority to determine who is attractive and who is not. Lambrini owner John Halewood said: "It makes some very understandable rulings to encourage sensible drinking but we're not sure they're qualified to decide for the nation who's sexy and who's not. Sexual attraction is happily one of the few things in life that can't be governed." For now. (HT: Andrew Stuttaford in The Corner) Quotidian "The phrase 'the people' is sheer nonsense. It is not a political term. It is a phrase of natural history. A people is not a species; a civilized community is a nation." -- Benjamin Disraeli, Letters of Runnymede Profiling and the War on Terror Charles Krauthammer has a solution to the disinclination to the use of profiling in the screening of train and bus passengers: reverse profiling. Eliminate those obviously not a threat. Krauthammer says in yesterday's Washington Post of the current non-profiling policy: "The only good thing to be said for this ridiculous policy is that it testifies to the tolerance and goodwill of Americans, so intent on assuaging the feelings of minority fellow citizens that they are willing to undergo useless indignities and tolerate massive public waste." Krauthammer continues: "Assuaging feelings is a good thing, but hunting for terrorists this way is simply nuts. The fact is that jihadist terrorism has been carried out from Bali to Casablanca to Madrid to London to New York to Washington by young Muslim men of North African, Middle Eastern and South Asian origin. This is not a stereotype. It is a simple statistical fact. Yes, you have your shoe-bomber, a mixed-race Muslim convert, who would not fit the profile. But the overwhelming odds are that the guy bent on blowing up your train traces his origins to the Islamic belt stretching from Mauritania to Indonesia. Yet we recoil from concentrating bag checks on men who might fit this description. Well, if that is impossible for us to do, then let's work backward. Eliminate classes of people who are obviously not suspects. We could start with a little age pruning -- no one under, say, 13, and no one over, say, 60. Then we could exempt whole ethnic populations, a list that could immediately start with Hispanics, Scandinavians and East Asians. Then we could have a huge saving, a 50 percent elimination of waste, by giving a pass to women, except perhaps the most fidgety, sweaty, suspicious-looking, overcoat-wearing, knapsack-bearing young woman, to be identified by the presiding officer. You object that with these shortcuts, we might not catch everybody. True. But how many do we catch now with the billions spent patting down grandmothers from Poughkeepsie?" Sounds reasonable which is the reason why it won't be implemented. The current thinking among our leaders and politicians is that it is better to assuage feelings of resentment (the would-be profiled Muslims) and guilt (everyone else) than to combat the threat of terrorism. Barefoot capitalism Over at the Globalization Institute blog Anthony Batty gives a mini review of The Miracle of Barefoot Capitalism: For Millions of the World's Ambitious Poor One Small Loan Opens the Door to New Lives by Jim Klobuchar and Susan Cornell Wilkes, a book that highlights the success stories of those who have benefited from microcredit. Batty notes the authors' "focus is primarily on the stories of the individuals that make microcredit work, from the woman selling meat and cheese, to the Lawyer who after a near death experience sets up a chain of pharmacies, taking in the administrators who devote their lives to improving the lot of others." Batty and the authors recognize that microcredit is not a cure-all but it is a significant step forward for millions of impoverished Africans, Asias and South Americans. Friday, July 29, 2005
Quotidian "The idle aristocracy, abdicating its natural political role, made the process of government seem artificial, the fortuitous product of competition and struggle." -- Gertrude Himmelfarb, The New History and the Old: Critical Essays and Reappraisals Celebrity causes "Jane Galt" found celebrities practicing their politics that doesn't make her blood boil: coming out against farm subsidies. The reason has nothing to do with libertarian theory but rather the negative impact such subsidies in industrial countries have on the developing world. While many conservatives hate celebrities butting their noses into the political sphere I have never had a problem with it. What I detest is giving their views any credence simply because they are celebrities. We should judge their involvement in politics on the force of their arguments. By that count, at least Minnie Driver's views should be taken seriously. She said: "People think more aid will help, but it won't. Trade is the surest way of decreasing the savage amount of poverty in our world. These countries have got to be able to trade fairly." Great point and well articulated. Driver, Antonio Banderas, Bono and others are part of an advertising campaign to be launched this fall by Oxfam America. Great. Now, let's knock the celeb down a notch. The New York Times reports: "Ms. Driver, whose ad features cotton, said she was inspired to participate in the Oxfam campaign after traveling with the group to Cambodia and Thailand last year. She toured clothing factories where women, some in obvious poor health, worked in substandard conditions for menial wages. Cambodia and Thailand are not cotton-producing nations, but Ms. Driver said she chose that agricultural product because she needed to remain relatively clean after her photograph, since she was in the middle of a press tour for a London play." So Driver will help out the cause as long as she can remain "relatively clean" doing so. I wonder if the others were similarly vain. Happy birthday, Alexis Over at the Adam Smith Institute blog, Dr. Eamonn Butler reminds everyone that today marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexis de Tocqueville. US political news Senator John McCain inches to officially launching his bid for the Republican presidential nomination for 2008. The Washington Post reports: "Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has quietly reactivated his political action committee. The potential 2008 presidential candidate filed papers July 15 re-creating his Straight Talk America PAC, a move that looks very much like a prelude to another run for the White House." We'll see if the media can launch a favoured son to the GOP nomination. The same WaPo story reports that Senator Rick Santorum (R) of Pennsylvania is capitulating a bit on his clear answer not to run for president in 2008 and the West Virginia Republicans are smoking something because they may be gunning for Senator Robert Byrd's seat. Run Dick, run WorldNetDaily reports that veteran journalist Helen Thomas told The Hill that if Vice President Dick Cheney runs for president, she'll kill herself. If ever Cheney needed incentive, at the very least, to announce he's going to run ... Mark the calendar The Liberals did the right thing -- they said no to Carolyn Parrish's return to their caucus. At least according to Paul Martin Marc Roy. Wait until another close vote. Get the feeling, though, that Parrish didn't want back. She must have known that opening her mouth about Afghanistan would be ammunition for those who believe a Parrish-free Liberal Party is a better Liberal Party. Bye, bye Frist The New York Times reports that, "In a break with President Bush, the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, has decided to support a bill to expand federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, a move that could push it closer to passage and force a confrontation with the White House, which is threatening to veto the measure." It's also a move that should sink Frist's GOP presidential hopes. The party is not going to coalesce around a candidate who's on the wrong side of the ESCR issue unless he has something extraordinary to offer. Frist has ... em ... I'm not sure. I can't think of another thing Frist has done recently other than his capitulation to the Democrats over the nuclear option on judges. That isn't going to win him GOP friends either. Steyn on the British terrorists In this week's Spectator column, Mark Steyn notes that Yassin Hassan Omar, a Somali asylum-seeker sought in connection with the July 21 terrorist attempts in London, had his rent subsidized by the British government and comments: "There’s a pleasant thought the next time you’re on a bus when some Islamakazi self-detonates: it’s on your tax bill; P-A-Y-E — pay as you explode." The disappearing Bridget Fonda According to imdb.com, actress Bridget Fonda hasn't made a movie since 2001 (not including some 2002 television appearances). I was also surprised to find that she's 41 years old. These may be related; she can no longer get away with playing pretty young things. Conspiracy theory The recent news about shootings in Toronto, they're all lies to sell newspapers. So says Conservative MP Monte Solberg. How, he wonders, can there be gun violence in Canada with our gun registry and all? The stories are obviously a ploy to increase paper sales. GCH, luv ya 2 but ... Gods of the Copybook Headings have placed Sobering Thoughts on their top 12 list of daily must-read blogs. The feeling is mutual. That said I must take issue with his labelling me a religious conservative. As I note on the left-hand side of this blog, I'm an unhyphenated conservative. Sure, my Catholicism is decisive in determining my political views and, sure, during my day job as editor of The Interim I read, write and think about moral issues -- abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, religious freedom, etc... -- but here I'm as likely to blog about World War IV, the Empire of Liberty, British and U.S. politics, media bias and free trade as I am about moral issues; actually, I probably blog about international issues and foreign politics more than anything else. Yes, I hold religious views. Yes, I am a devout Catholic (or at least I hope I am). Yes, I consider abortion and other moral issues the most important facing our country. But I don't consider myself a social conservative. Just conservative will do fine, thanks. It's too bad that if one holds strong views on moral issues one is pigeon-holed as a religious or social conservative. I resent that when I attend political functions or parties with mostly political types I'm always asked about "socially conservative view of ..." whatever political development is the news of the day. I'd be just as happy to discuss taxation, health policy, the latest international news or the war on terror as I am to talk about abortion. In fact, I'd prefer it. Furthermore, in much of the work I do I try to bring so-cons and fiscal conservatives together. As a matter of strategy I think it smarter to focus on our common interests and goals, and that means ignoring the adjectives before the noun. Thursday, July 28, 2005
The myth of moderate Islam The Spectator has a courageous article about the bellicose nature of Islam. Here are two key paragraphs: "It is probably true that in every faith ordinary people will pick the parts they like best and practise those, while the scholars will work out an official version. In Islam the scholars had a particularly challenging task, given the mass of contradictory texts within the Koran. To meet this challenge they developed the rule of abrogation, which states that wherever contradictions are found, the later-dated text abrogates the earlier one. To elucidate further the original intention of Mohammed, they referred to traditions (hadith) recording what he himself had said and done. Sadly for the rest of the world, both these methods led Islam away from peace and towards war. For the peaceable verses of the Koran are almost all earlier, dating from Mohammed’s time in Mecca, while those which advocate war and violence are almost all later, dating from after his flight to Medina. Though jihad has a variety of meanings, including a spiritual struggle against sin, Mohammed’s own example shows clearly that he frequently interpreted jihad as literal warfare and himself ordered massacre, assassination and torture. From these sources the Islamic scholars developed a detailed theology dividing the world into two parts, Dar al-Harb and Dar al-Islam, with Muslims required to change Dar al-Harb into Dar al-Islam either through warfare or da’wa (mission). So the mantra ‘Islam is peace’ is almost 1,400 years out of date. It was only for about 13 years that Islam was peace and nothing but peace. From 622 onwards it became increasingly aggressive, albeit with periods of peaceful co-existence, particularly in the colonial period, when the theology of war was not dominant. For today’s radical Muslims — just as for the mediaeval jurists who developed classical Islam — it would be truer to say ‘Islam is war’. One of the most radical Islamic groups in Britain, al-Ghurabaa, stated in the wake of the two London bombings, ‘Any Muslim that denies that terror is a part of Islam is kafir.’ A kafir is an unbeliever (i.e., a non-Muslim), a term of gross insult." This leads author Patrick Sookhdeo to ask a very impolitic question: "Could it be that the young men who committed suicide were neither on the fringes of Muslim society in Britain, nor following an eccentric and extremist interpretation of their faith, but rather that they came from the very core of the Muslim community and were motivated by a mainstream interpretation of Islam?" He answers yes and calls for an Islamic reformation: "[Muslims] must look at the reinterpretation of their texts, the Koran, hadith and Sharia, and the reformation of their faith. Mundir Badr Haloum has described this as ‘exorcising’ the terrorism from Islam. Mahmud Muhammad Taha argued for a distinction to be drawn between the Meccan and the Medinan sections of the Koran. He advocated a return to peaceable Meccan Islam ..." Sookhdeo also suggests Muslims follow the post-9/11 proposals of the Free Muslims Coalition (based in the United States: 1. A re-interpretation of Islam for the 21st century, where terrorism is not justified under any circumstances. 2. Separation of religion and state. 3. Democracy as the best form of government. 4. Secularism in all forms of political activity. 5. Equality for women. 6. Religion to be a personal relationship between the individual and his or her God, not to be forced on anyone. Sookhdeo says it will be a "long, hard road for Islam to get its house in order," and he has other proposals, too, beginning with an unambiguous criticism of terror and allegiance to the Crown rather than their overseas brethren. And the West can help them by abandoning the woeful policy of multiculturalism that allows extremism to flourish in the shadows of a parallel Islamic culture. The Gipper's last victory CAFTA passed by two votes in the House yesterday. Investor's Business Daily editorialized: "To be sure, not everyone loved CAFTA. Former Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega is one who desperately wanted CAFTA to fail. He's still around, plotting and conniving his return to power without an election, counting on economic ruin as his lever for seizing power. He got support this time from his old ally Fidel Castro, another anti-CAFTA force, and new pals like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Luckily, the fierce will of Central America's democratically elected presidents prevailed. Those nations will, we hope, become free-market bulwarks against the spread of Castro- and Chavez-style tyranny. Free people do not give up freedom easily. With CAFTA's passage, America's old hemispheric enemies have lost big to Ronald Reagan. Again. To his great credit, President Bush pushed it. But CAFTA really is another victory for the Gipper." What a great day for freedom and free markets. Quotidian "Men invent new ideals because they dare not attempt old ideals. They look forward with enthusiasm, because they are afraid to look back." -- G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World The Rwandan genocide I am reading Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, a report compiled by journalist Jean Hatzfeld. It is horrifying and harrowing. In one part describing the killing of acquaintances, "Fulgence," one of the tens of thousands of Hutu genocidal murderers said that if he didn't kill a Tutsi, the person behind him would. Another, "Adalbert," said, "It was possible not to kill a neighbour or someone who appealed for pity, gratitude or recognition, but it was not possible to save the person." Another, "Pio," says that sometimes he would see someone in the crowd that about to get hacked to death that he knew and a "pang pinched my heart" so he "left him to a nearby colleague" to murder. But, Pio said, he had to turn aside "quietly, I could not reveal my good heart." As I said, horrifying and harrowing. And horrible. Pataki's future John Podhoretz writes in the New York Post about Governor George Pataki's political future. He rightly says that the soon-to-be former guv has no chance of a successful run for the GOP presidential nomination: "He is a pro-choice, pro-gun control liberal Republican by any reckoning, a Northeastern governor who has presided over a massive increase in the state's budget and made common cause with public-sector unions." And unlike former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, Podhoretz says, he doesn't have something "extraordinary to offer to overcome such liabilities." Giuliani reduced crime, went after the mob and was heroic during the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. That doesn't mean that Pataki doesn't have a political future. Podhoretz says that if Senator Hillary Clinton decides it would be better for her to run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination unencumbered by the limitations of being a senator and doesn't run for re-election next year, Pataki might eye that race. I think Podhoretz has a point but I wonder why, other than maintaining a winning record (thrice elected governor of New York) going into the GOP primaries in 2008 why Pataki wouldn't challenge for the Senate seat even if Hillary ran. In fact, if he kept it close, he could win points by 1) demonstrating that he can keep it close in a race against Hillary and 2) that he took one for the Republican team in trying to unseat her. I think that Hillary has more to lose from losing her re-election bid than Pataki does in losing a challenge to her. I also would guess that if Hillary is seriously challenged that we would be more likely to see her ugly, vindictive and shrill side, the frightening side to the former First Lady that she has so effectively hidden for the last six or seven years. As awful as Pataki is, he would be better than Hillary. And he just might derail her presidential ambitions. Canadian healthcare stuff First, the Fraser Institute released its How Good is Canadian Health Care: 2005 Report today. I'll post more about this tonight or tomorrow; it's 66 pages and I'm only half-way through. I think that it provides some direction for the Conservatives on healthcare policy but more about that later. Earlier this week I noted the absurdity of appointing Dr. Brian Postl as the new waiting lists czar, whose job it is apparently to better manage the waiting times patients endure. A friend emailed an interesting question regarding ... how to put this? ... Postl's qualifications: "Given that he's been a health care administrator for more than a decade managing waiting lists, has he reduced a single waiting list?" I doubt it but if you can prove my suspicions incorrect, please email proof to paul_tuns [AT] yahoo.com Missing the point Laurence Vance notes at the Ludwig von Mises Institute blog that during a recent lecture Walter Block cracked a joke about Canada's military, "something to the effect that Canada has three rowboats for a navy and a police car for an army." That's funny. But Vance is plainly obtuse considering the "profound" insight that joke provided. Vance says: "I think it is interesting that Canada is not threatened by "rogue states" and that Canadians are not hated the world over. Could it be because they don't send troops all over the world like the United States?" Yes, it must be that. That's why Canada is so completely ignored. Never mind that in Osama bin Laden's list of five crusader nations that his fellow Islamists should target includes Canada, among the United States, United Kingdom, Spain and Australia. As I write for the next Business Report, it's not that Canada is not a target for terrorism; it is that it hasn't been attacked yet. Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Quotidian "Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists. Every day there are newspaper pages and television newscasts to be filled, and an expert who can deliver a jarring piece of wisdom is always welcome. Working together, journalists and experts are the architects of much conventional wisdom." -- Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Wedding Crashers I saw the movie Wedding Crashers this evening and I have to admit that it was better than I thought it would be. That's not entirely fair; not only was it better than I expected, it was a delightfully fun and funny movie for the first hour before it fell into a plot development that drained the film of its energy. It is a ribald comedy and there is offensive material including swearing and nudity, so if this sort of thing ain't your bag, I'd avoid the movie. Vince Vaughn was great and I would have to agree with John Podhoretz's claim in his Weekly Standard review that as a comedy team, Vaughn and Owen Wilson were great together. Rachel McAdams is charming and instantly fall-in-lovable and Christopher Walken is ... well, he's Christopher Walken, so you can't go wrong. Unfortunately, Jane Seymour is beginning to show her age and they play her a sex-starved, drunk politicians wife. It was a little bit creepy. Overall, though, I have to agree with Podhoretz's assessment of the movie: it's a "sensational dirty joke of a movie" and the "sort of picture that might get people excited about going to the theatre again." In short, it's the kind of movie that you don't feel ripped off paying ten bucks to see which is more than I can say about most of the few films I see anymore at the theatre. A fundamental truth most people don't understand Tim Worstall makes a point in a post at the Globalization Institute -- "there are problems but we can solve them, the first step being to prioritize and decide which we want to solve first" -- that I think few people understand. For more than a year, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin described everything as a priority that his government would address. But many Canadians, and I presume citizens elsewhere, do not understand that not every problem has a solution and that even if they did that they can all be solved right now. Thomas Sowell has repeatedly made the point that politicians do not understand what every economist does: that life is full of trade-offs. Solve problems, yes, but work to solve them by focusing on the most important. This means that government should eschew the headline-grabbing announcements about "new" spending and "new" programs that barely make a dent in a problem but that do win the plaudits of media and public alike. Dr. Madsen Pirie notes at the Adam Smith Institute blog the style of the Blair government (and, to be fair, most governments): "This is a government which likes the headlines, and the praise which promised action brings. It is less keen on the hard work required to implement real change and improvement." That is a style that panders to the public's perception that all problems are solvable now. UN's Zimbabwe report misses mark Claudia Rosett has the story at Opinion Journal. She notes: "With a delicacy over-zealously inappropriate in itself to dealings with the tyrant whose regime has been responsible for wreck of Zimbabwe, the report starts by thanking Mr. Mugabe for his 'warm welcome' to the U.N. delegation, which visited the country from June 26 to July 8. The report, issued by the secretary-general's special envoy Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka, then proceeds to the usual U.N. prescription that what Zimbabwe needs is more aid, and a framework--here comes the UN lingo--"to ensure the sustainability of humanitarian response." While the report also calls for the 'culprits' to be called to justice under Zimbabwe laws, Mugabe himself is somehow excused from direct responsibility." Zimbabwe may need aid but not before regime change. Canada's healthcare's absurdity Dr. Brian Postl, a Manitoba physician and CEO of the Winnipeg Health Region, is Prime Minister Paul Martin's new waiting list czar or something like that. He says that queues are part of every healthcare system and that "Sometimes waiting is not necessarily a bad thing." Unless, of course, you're a patient. Okay, Canada's queue czar says that some waiting isn't a bad thing so we know what to expect from him: nothing. Well, not nothing; we're going to get better management of waiting times. The Canadian Press reported that Health Canada determined in 1998 that waiting lists "are non-standardized, capriciously organized, poorly monitored, and (according to most informed observers) in grave need of retooling." So Dr. Postl's task, presumably, will be to make waiting times standardized, more organized and better monitored. That'll make a lot of gravely ill people feel better, I'm sure. Open race for Empire State GOP in 2006 The New York Times reports that sources close to New York Governor George Pataki say he will not seek a fourth term as governor. The paper speculates that the decision leaves the door open to a 2008 presidential run although that seems unlikely; he is too liberal to win the nomination and he would compete with another former centrist New York politician, Rudy Giuliani for the votes of independents and so-called Republican moderates. The immediate effect is to clear the way for Democratic Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to win the governorship in 2006 and have Hillary Clinton coast to re-election the same year. Unless Pataki or Giuliani get into the ring with Clinton, the GOP has no credible candidate to field for either major state-wide race in 2006. Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Riding Shotgun I've posted about Zimbabwe cozying up to Red China and Russia's only growth industry (bribes) at The Shotgun. Quotidian "When the sanctions of law, religion and morals broke down through persistent misapplication to matters of conduct quite outside their purview, the sanctions of taste and manners had become too frail and anaemic to be of any practical good. For obvious reasons, the resulting state of our society seems beyond hope of improvement. Attempts to galvanize the sanctions of law, religion and morals for further misapplication are ineffectual; and ineffectual also must be the attempt to root the saving criteria of taste and manners in an ethical soil laid waste by the Benthamite doctrine of expediency." -- Albert Jay Nock, The Memoirs of a Superfluous Man The truth about those 'moderate Muslims' It appears that there are fewer "moderate Muslims" than was first estimated. We are always told that only 1% of Muslims are Islamists who might be prone to committing terrorist attacks. I've long that number to have been made up out of thin air. I've also long argued that the support that these extremists have within the larger Muslim population is greater than anybody wants to admit. Now there is some polling data to back up these thoughts. Here's a report from the Daily Telegraph (HT: Burkean Canuck) on a study the attitudes of British Muslims toward the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Specifically, 6% of British Muslims say it was justified, 24% say they sympathize with the terrorists' "feelings" and "motives", and 56% say they understand why some of their brethren would carry out such attacks. The Telegraph notes of even that 6%: "Six per cent may seem a small proportion but in absolute numbers it amounts to about 100,000 individuals who, if not prepared to carry out terrorist acts, are ready to support those who do." And that is only those who will admit their true, extremist views. French soccer Here's a two-part look (part one and part two) at the upcoming French soccer season from Reuters. They sensibly predict that Olympique Lyon will likely win their fifth straight French title and that AC Monaco is the only team that could even challenge them. I'm predicting Lyon, Monaco and Olympique Marseille for the top three spots with the much-improved (and was it merely active) Marseille having as good a chance as Lyon to win it all. Lyon has at least one big change from last year and maybe two; they've replaced their phenomenally successful manager Paul Le Guen with former Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier and could still lose Ghanan midfielder Michael Essien to Chelsea. The moral destruction of Canada: a survey This article, an overview of the moral crisis that Canada finds itself in now, appears in the August issue of The Interim. The Destruction of Canada: A Survey By Paul Tuns The Interm "Once human life is devalued at its core, a chain of devaluation begins that travels outward from the source and cheapens all life. This chain is not visible in any single person's decision. From legalized abortion to child abuse and infanticide, to convenience killing of the disabled, to passive euthanasia, to active euthanasia, to state funding and promotion of all of these - there is no moral stopping point." - William Gairdner, The War Against the Family For about 40 years, Canada has been the laboratory for an awful social experiment. Beginning with contraception (1967) and divorce (1968), Canadian society has become a culture, coarsened by narcisicm and nihilism; these, in turn, have led us to abortion (1969) and euthanasia (2005?). Canada has become a culture, corrputed by death. But in order to reverse these deleterious social trends, one must first understand them. Contraception separated pleasure from procreation, and it was not long until the ideal of self-sacrifice was replaced by the desire for self-fulfillment at any cost. If children could be delayed (or avoided) because they were deemed to be unwanted, surely spouses could be left for the same reason. Marriage was no longer a sacred covenant, which lasted until death, but a convenient coupling that could be dissolved if it was no longer satisfying for either spouse. Divorce separated spouses which had refused to grow together into a family - all promises became conditional. When personal fulfillment replaces sacred commitment, the result is limitless indifference: broken marriages create broken families, and broken families can produce only broken children. The desire to contracept eventually becomes the "right to choose." Now, two generations of Canadians have suffered from "choice." The silent holocaust, the killing of more than 2.5 million unborn children since 1969, represented a turning away from our cultural patrimony. Canada abandoned its Christian heritage, doctors no longer swore the Hippocratic Oath, men abdicated their responsibilities and women divorced themselves from their own femininity and the noble role of motherhood. Every year, more than 100,000 abortions are committed in Canada in the name of "choice," that is, conveniece. A woman can have an abortion at any time, for any reason and (almost always) at government expense. The state and media have done their best to silence pro-lifers so that abortion-minded women do not know the truth about the grim procedure they are considering. There is unlimited abortion on demand in Canada, despite the fact that only a quarter of Canadians believe in an unrestricted "right to abortion." While even pro-abortionists claim to want abortion safe, legal and rare, the fact is the killing of the unborn is ubiquitous. The changes in the 1960s - changes to sexual mores and relationships, the easy destruction of human life, the undermining of the sanctity of marriage - set the ball rolling for ever more changes that are slowly destroying the soul of this country. The destruction of marriage Also, from about this time, there was a growing legal and then societal tolerance of homosexuality. Acts of sodomy were no longer prosecuted and eventually, homosexual couples won legal rights, beginning with legitimate civil rights (such as freedom from discrimination in housing). But then, there were moves to redefine justice in order to grant special rights to homosexuals, including the "right" to marriage and the subjection of religious belief to the "right" of active homosexuals to work in church environments (the Vriend decision). In the mid-1990s, the idea of same-sex "marriage" was still outside the mainstream. Same-sex "marriage" wasn't even debated outside of the limited scope of the gay press. But, in the late 1990s, several homosexual couples began constitutional challenges to the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. In 1999, as these cases began to wind their way through several levels of court, Parliament considered a Reform party motion to reaffirm the definition of marriage. Then-justice minister Ann McLellan scoffed at the motion, saying it was unnecessary. No one, she claimed, had any interest in redefining marriage to include homosexual couples. But within four years, the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down the traditional definition of marriage as discriminatory and, two years later, it is now the law of the land. The lesson here is that what is inconceivable now may be the newly ordained rights of tomorrow. That's why it is difficult to take the promises of current Justice Minister Irwin Cotler seriously. He vows that the rights of religious officials will be protected and dismisses the notion that same-sex "marriage" will lead to polygamy. But, if recent history is any indication, we'll be fighting those battles by 2010. The next battles In 2003, Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which allowed embryonic stem cell research and opened the door to human cloning for research purposes (although the government claims it banned that). The first embryonic stem cell lines have been already created at the University of Toronto, despite the fact the Assisted Human Reproduction Agency for Canada - the agency responsible for overseeing such research created by the Act - is not yet in operation. Canadian officials have expressed the hope that this country will be on the "cutting edge" of bio-research. By this, they mean they hope to destroy human beings for experimental purposes, even though there are ample avenues of exploration that don't require the destruction of human life at the embryonic stage. Such experimentation does not help doctors heal patients and is only pursued to satisfy the morbid curiosity of research teams, eager for prestige. The moral standards of these projects aim low: they consist of nothing more than the bare minimum of scientific protocols, such as ensuring egg and sperm donor parents consent to having their biological material used for experimental purposes. As Canada pumps more and more money into these depraved projects, there will be calls for liberalizing the already-loose restrictions on such research, all in the name of progress. The march of "progress" in the field of science is matched by a parallel social revolution which would tinker with the building blocks of the family. In the name of progress the assault on family life and our children will intensify. After the Supreme Court of the United States rendered the Lawrence decision in June 2003, which disallowed states to proscribe sodomy, Mormons in Utah launched a challenge to a state law that prohibited polygamy. There is talk among Mormons in western Canada, and among some Canadian Muslims, that since same-sex "marriage" has been declared law, the climate is ripe to push for multiple "marriage." All the arguments for same-sex "marriage" are applicable to so-called multiple "marriage" - the people love one another and the state should not proscribe such relationships; the makeup of families changes; the majority has no right to impose its morality on the minority. Indeed, once the definition of marriage has been radically altered, further tinkering becomes easier. Once society says the gender of participants is irrelevant, it becomes easier to say that the number of participants is irrelevant, too. Same-sex "marriage" is an assault on the rights of children because it denies them both a mother and father; polygamy confuses children by giving them a father and several mothers. But even this may be only the beginning. In recent years, the prohibition against child pornography has been relaxed and eroded in favour of some rather minor restrictions and one can see a time, not far into the future, when even those will be dropped. Children are no longer precious gifts, but commodities who are increasingly sexualized in the eyes of society. Can pedophilia be far behind? There are already websites calling for "tolerance" for those who are "attracted to children." History has shown that at first, those who seek change call for understanding and tolerance, but later pursue acceptance and license. Attitudes are changing and before long, so too will the law. With abortion and same-sex "marriage," society has collectively abandoned its children. It will now take a reawakening to protect our most vulnerable and dependent citizens from being victimized by pornography. The other threat to children is the separation of them from their parents. There are two immediate battles on this front: daycare and education. Canada already has institutional daycare, but only about one of every seven families with preschool children uses it. The most common child care arrangement is still a parent staying at home full- or part-time, followed by care by a relative or neighbourhood parent. But, if you were to listen to Social Development Minister Ken Dryden, who describes daycare as a fact of life in Canada, you would think that formal institutional care is the norm. This government has earmarked at least $5 billion over the next five years for some sort of national daycare scheme, the details of which still must be worked out. It probably will end up being a subsidy to the provinces so that they can expand existing daycare programs. Even studies by the left-leaning Vanier Institute for the Family have found that most families would like one parent to stay home with the children. This includes those families in which both the mother and the father work. If Ottawa was attuned to the desires and needs of families, it would develop programs to make it easier for a mother or father to stay home and raise children and to stop punishing (through the tax system) parents who make the sacrifice to do just that. Instead, for ideological reasons - a mindless egalitarianism that seeks to turn women into wombless clones of men - Ottawa is committed to expanding daycare. To do that, to encourage women to abandon their families by entering the workforce, a national, tax-funded daycare scheme is necessary. If women want to work and find a trustworthy source of care for their children, so be it. But for the state to encourage it is altogether another matter. A cynic might even see a reason for the state's interest in breaking the ties of children and parents. If the trend to redefining morality is to continue, then why not begin indoctrination at the earliest possible stage? Why wait until a child is six, nine or 15, when you can begin when he or she is two or three years old? Can the task of imparting "Canadian values" be left to parents alone? Many families already know too well the dangers that public education have meant for children. From incompetent teaching to sex-ed that is divorced from virtue, families and concerned citizens have fought the educational system for at least 20 years. This stuggle will only continue as the system gets worse. Liberal MP Alan Tonks, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's Janet Epp Buckingham and others have warned that same-sex "marriage" will lead to the teaching of homosexuality as normative in our public schools. Indeed, there is already a case before the human rights tribunal in B.C., in which a homosexual couple is attempting to force schools to include more material in their curriculums about homosexuality and to deny parents the right to keep their children from such lessons. In other words, the rights of parents to raise their children with the values they see fit will be circumscribed by the necessity to accommodate the view that homosexuality is merely a lifestyle choice as valid as heterosexuality. Two other developments are also not that far down the road: euthanasia and legal prostitution. Bill C-407, a private member's bill that would allow euthanasia, is currently before the House of Commons. It passed first reading in June and debate on it will resume when Parliament sits again in the fall. Euthanasia is the logical next step in a society that already permits the killing of the inconvenient and unwanted at the beginning of life. Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee is examining the implications of legalizing prostitution. This is another assault on the family, because it turns sex into a consumer commodity and further separates it from procreation. Having succumbed to a free-love mentality - sex free of both responsibility and consequence - can it be far off into the future when bestiality becomes a political issue? Far-fetched? Three years ago, Tony Blair's Labour government reduced the punishment for bestiality. At about the same time, a New England man sought legal recognition of his dog as his wife. It seems absurd, but there are people and organizations clamouring for protection for all kinds of perversities. The question is not simply sexual promiscuity or homosexuality, or the possibility of polygamy, incest, pedophilia, or even bestiality. It is, rather, a radical agenda best summarized as pansexuality - the demolishing of any sexual morality whatsoever. Banishing Christianity In recent years, religion, which had always played a central role in Canadian society, has been dispatched to the periphery. Prayer has been banned from public schools. Municipalities and legislatures have stopped displaying Christmas decorations, and private companies prohibit employees from wishing customers a "Merry Christmas." Any overt expression of Christianity has been banned from the public square. According to the Canadian census and recent polls, at least four in five Canadians say they believe in God. According to the most recent Ipsos-Reid polling, the exact number is 84 per cent; 77 per cent of Canadians are Christian. As Darrell Bricker and John Wright note in their recent book What Canadians Think (About Almost Everything), "That may surprise some people, given that our society is constantly depicted as being extremely secular." It is probably more accurate to say we are a nation of believers ruled by a secular elite. But the ideals of the elite are influencing the attitudes of the people. According to Bricker and Wright, 59 per cent of Canadians oppose churches giving direction to politicians on moral issues. That indicates the majority of Canadians buy into the mentality described by David Frum, who said that many liberals have no problem with religion, as long it is confined to a purely personal sphere that has no influence on how a person or others behave. This means, of course, that religion would have no meaning, not only for society, but for the believer himself. It is a view that neuters religion completely. And this is precisely the view that society has embraced. Religion has been banished from the public square. First, politicians bought into the idea that there was a separation of church and state, so total that the church has no right to speak at all; before long, the public thought this way too. But once religion was separated from politics, so, too, was morality - at least morality as most Canadians knew it. This country fell for the lie that you can't legislate morality, as if law expresses something other than the ideas about right and wrong. Pierre Trudeau famously said the state should stay out of the nation's bedrooms, but his policies have resulted in putting it everywhere else in society. The state permitted easy divorce and placed itself and its courts in an ever greater number of family disputes. The state approved and then funded abortions, thus involving itself in the doctor-patient relationship and, more ominously, the womb. The state okayed ghoulish scientific processes and funded cloning and embryonic stem cell research, thus bursting through the doors of the medical laboratories. The state attacked religion, thus entering into the churches to tell them what they could and could not do. One of the central arguments for abortion - that women should be absolutely free to do with their bodies what they want - is not extended to any other sphere. The state regulates every other aspect of life, proscribing limits to liberty. Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary theoretically has freedom of religion to carry out his duties as an ecclesiastical leader, but is being harassed by a provincial human rights commission for speaking out against same-sex "marriage." He was also visited by Revenue Canada just prior to the last election and warned against raising moral issues from the pulpit (with the implicit threat that his church's charitable tax status would be revoked if he did). Canadians theoretically have freedom of speech, but are severely constrained against voicing their opinions during an election campaign due to this country's newly-minted "gag laws." Yes, they can talk to a candidate and cast their votes, but are limited in their ability to organize themselves to address issues of a national scope by draconian limits on how much they spend and how they address issues. Women are free to procure abortions, but medical professionals do not have the right to refuse to commit them. Canadian couples are free to contracept, but pharmacists do not have the right to refuse to dispense them on conscience grounds. Homosexual couples are free to marry, but marriage commissioners do not have the right to refuse to partake in ceremonies they consider wrong. Influential minority groups are free to advocate radical changes in society, but once they succeed, Canadians who hold traditional views of morality do not have the right to revisit the issue. Rights in Canada are a one-way street that only points further and further left. The road ahead Obviously, the issue of legislating morality is not a question of whether it should be done or not. The issue is whose morality is legislated. For 40 years, the debate has been settled almost every time in favour of those who want to remake society, destroy time-hounored institutions, create new "rights" and upset the moral order. This trend will not soon change. But, there is no reason to despair. Despair is a sin. It is the belief that 308 members of Parliament and nine Supreme Court justices are more powerful than One God. From a political perspective, it is an excuse to do nothing, to accept the status quo. This leads to the temptation to remove oneself from society, to cease striving for a better world. This, of course, is wrong. Those of faith must remain faithful. Those involved in politics must remain active. Those seeking to protect themselves and their families must remain committed to their children, their spouses, and their ideals. While there is little cause for optimism, there is much cause for hope. Belief in Scripture leads to the knowledge that God will not abandon his people nor challenge them with anything greater than they can handle (with Him). Despite the claim that issues are settled - that "social peace" can censor debate - these issues can and must be re-examined. It may take a lot of hard work, co-ordination, new strategies and reinvigorated efforts, but it can be done. Democracy has been curtailed, but not destroyed, and the will of a majority of Canadians (or even a sizeable minority) cannot be ignored forever. While the inclination to protect oneself and one's family from the encroachments of government and popular culture is understandable, we are called to fight, not run. And, while you might want to ignore the state, the state will not ignore you. So, if hard work is needed to reverse the course, it is hard work that we are called to do. Commit yourself entirely to the cause of life and liberty, of faith and family. Do not vote for a political candidate who does not represent your moral views. Support those who do. Donate to, and volunteer with, pro life, pro-family and religious organizations. Become informed about the issues. Share that information with others. Don't be afraid to be different. Go against the grain. Victory might not be tomorrow, but there will be victory. Sadly, not all of us will live to see the return of moral sanity, but that is no reason to avoid hard work now. Perhaps what we are doing is "laying the tracks" - that is, creating the conditions necessary for our children and grandchildren to turn society around. If that is what we are doing, we must keep our faith, safeguard our hope, and jealously defend the truth, so that our children inherit a legacy of virtue. This is no small thing, but it is a thing worth doing. It is what we must do. We must dare to hope Tyranny's enablers In his Calgary Sun column yesterday, Ezra Levant takes several high-tech companies for their complicity in strangling freedom in Red China: "Recently, several class action suits have been filed against IBM for their role in the Holocaust. Like IBM in the Nazi era, Microsoft, Nortel, Cisco say they're just doing business -- they're not the ones arresting Chinese dissidents and sending them to prison. But they are the ones setting the high-tech traps and strangling democratic voices." Specifically their technology and programs identify computer users that use the words liberty, freedom and democracy or censure such ideas. These companies may not, as Microsoft rightly notes, actually commit any brutality but, as Ezra rightly notes, they "supply the technology that makes it worse." Freedom in North Korea A group of religious and rights organizations and leaders have called upon the administration and Congress to do more about the human rights abuses perpetrated by North Korea. (Their document can be read here.) For example, it calls upon President George W. Bush to appoint a human rights envoy to North Korea as directed by the North Korean Human Rights Act passed by Congress last year. It also requested the administration tie any aid to North Korea (a request made by Pyongyang in exchange for giving up their nuclear weapons program) to progress on human rights and calls for increased American pressure on China to stop sending back North Korean asylum seekers. It also suggests expanded broadcasts of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia into North Korea but stops short of calling for military action: "We strongly believe military action is neither called for nor needed in order to improve the conditions of the North Korean people." The document is a worthy endeavour; I hope the administration pays attention. What Cubans need is a holiday from Castro Today is a national holiday in Cuba commemorating the beginning of hostilities between Fidel Castro and the Batista dictatorship in 1953. Thankfully, the Castro dictatorship looks a little more precarious than usual -- there are an increasing number of anti-Castro protests resulting in a clamp down by the state. Also, Hurricane Dennis which hit earlier this month has caused a shortage in food and increase in the spread of disease and the Castro government is being blamed for its handling of the humanitarian crisis. Pray that this government falls sooner rather than later. Update: The first half of this AP story on the revolutionary holiday indicates that the protests are solely about Cubans being upset about the electricity shortages and hot temperatures. Last year the energy minister was sacked and the government promised $500 million in infrastructure upgrades. It has also erected billboards that say: "We are doing well." Once you've read well into the story you realize that Castro is once again jailing "dissidents" which in turn lead to more protests. Monday, July 25, 2005
3 million former Chinese communists? The Washington Times reports on the phenomenon of 20,000 Chinese registering their resignations from the Chinese communist party at the website of The Epoch Times, although some are questioning the validity of the claim by the Falun Gong-connected paper. John Tkacik, senior fellow in China studies at the Heritage Foundation, told the Times that, "If it is true and they could publicize this in China in a credible way, it would be very important." But the Times reports that leaving the party is not easy: "To officially resign from the party, one has to report to a plenary session of the party branch to which one belongs." Still, something but be going on. As the paper reports: "In 2004, 2.4 million Chinese joined the party and an additional 17.4 million applied for membership, Xinhua reported. More than 69 million Chinese are party members. The party has initiated a nationwide re-education campaign titled 'Maintain the Advancement of the Communist Party,' in which members are required to take loyalty oaths." Would Beijing be inaugurating such a campaign if everything was just fine? Red China enabling continuing crisis in Zimbabwe Roger Bates writes in the Weekly Standard that the West needs to do more for the people of Zimbabwe in light of the humanitarian crisis taking place there: "The Zimbabwean opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, has asked for a transitional government made up of his MDC with Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, and backed by Western aid and investment. Sources in South Africa say that President Mbeki is now backing this plan, and has persuaded Mugabe to come to the table, but Mbeki cannot be trusted to maintain his support, and Mugabe could easily renege on any deal. Even during initial negotiations, the South African Broadcasting Corporation announced that Mugabe was stepping up his attacks against the richer parts of the country where the opposition is dominant. Negotiators tell me they suspect Mugabe is only buying time, waiting to be given enough food to stop rural revolt, enabling him to walk away from the table and into the arms of the Chinese. In theory, the U.N. Security Council could act to end the violence, but with a Chinese veto threatened, that is unlikely. It falls then to the United States and the United Kingdom to push military intervention, for the sake of the people of this formerly successful African state." Sometimes I say 'things that are just plain incomprehensible' That was Gods of the Copybook Headings's assessment (scroll down) of my list of my favourite TV shows. Specifically GCH says: "Explain to me, if anyone can, how on earth Family Guy outranks The Simpsons? I'm a big fan of Family Guy. The epic battles between Peter and the Giant Yellow Chicken, revived in the new season, are mini-comic masterpieces. Anything with Stewie is brilliant. The scene where he sings Elton John's 'It's Goin' Be A Long, Long Time' is one of those transcendent moments in recent television. Still, not better than The Simpsons in its prime. Better than the first few seasons yes, though perhaps not as 'deep.' Certainly better than anything in the last few Simpsons' seasons. But at the shows' peak it passed itself into another level, the level of Monty Python, which is bizarrely at 11. Eleven, Paul? Eleven! And what's with Dallas and Dynasty at one and two? The Colbys was a spin-off and shouldn't have a separate ranking. You're double counting. Night Court is an intriguing choice. Definitely one of my all time favourites. Making it in the top fifteen is a bit tight though. The Big Valley is a good choice. I've always liked Barbara Stanwyck, which I guess in part explains The Colbys. That and Joan Collins' occasional appearances. You could cut glass not only on that woman's cheeks but on her tongue as well." In my defense, I said favourite, not best TV shows of all time, in which case The Colbys would get tossed out of the top 15 very quickly (that show and Night Court are sentimental favourites). For the record, I think that Monty Python and Simpsons at their best are unparalleled but I judge my favourite shows on how much I enjoy watching them and neither are always at the top of their game. I make no apologies for putting Dallas and Dynasty at one and two. And for the record, Joan Collins explains my father's interest in Dynasty/The Colbys, not mine. The Left cares more about politics than people That's why they rail against globalization all the time. Paul Staines at the Globalization Institute's blog: "It should, two centuries after Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, be axiomatic that to alleviate poverty, developing economies need to grow faster, and the poor need to benefit from this growth. Trade can play the key role in reducing poverty, because it boosts economic growth and the poor tend to benefit from that faster growth. Yet this is sometimes disputed by anti-capitalism / anti-globalization fanatics who put their ideological values before the needs of the developing world, caring more about opposing capitalist corporate symbols then raising living standards." GYC on the Tories Grumpy Young Crank has some thoughts on the Conservative Party repeating the mistakes of centre-right parties past after -- get this -- cleaning up his "apartment this weekend and [coming] across a couple of old direct mail flyers sent to me by the Reform Party of Canada, and the (then) new Canadian Alliance." How messy was GYC's room? Worse off than the mess at Conservative Party HQ apparently. Quotidian "Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is wretched, for it lacks passion." -- Soren Kierkegaard, A Kierkegaard Anthology Yanks looking to trade The $200 million payroll is not enough so the New York Yankees, who for the first time in nine years are going into the final week of July not in the top three the league, are looking to trade. They don't have much but have some big holes to fill: centrefield, a starter or two who is not injured and a reliable reliever to set up Mariano Riveria. The New York Times has the speculation. 2008 straw poll Patrick Ruffini's straw poll of the 2008 GOP presidential candidates: George Allen, Bill Frist, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney. I voted for Virginia Senator George Allen which is where I'd park my vote until Jeb Bush is pushed into the race. For the record, when I cast my vote, Allen was leading Giuliani 37.2 to 34.6. Latest on Roberts Bench Memos has news and discussion on Judge John Roberts including the Democratic attacks on his religion (practicing Catholic) and affiliations (he went to Federalist Society events). Big surprise The UN World Food Programme finally gets some relief to some of the 800,000 starving children in Niger but, as The Guardian reports, it might be too late. Hitchens on Watergate Christopher Hitchens offers this delicious bite in his New York Times review of Bob Woodward's The Secret Man: "Some of the speculations were obviously risible prima facie: did anyone really imagine Henry Kissinger or Alexander Haig taking a risk in order to uphold even the narrowest conception of ethics in government?" Add Fund's name to list supporting SCOTUS term limits John Fund addresses the issue in OpinionJournal.com, here. Lots of interesting figures ("From 1789 to 1970, justices left the Supreme Court at an average age of 68 years after only 15 years of service. Since 1970, they have stayed until they were an average of 78 years old and had served a quarter century," and "In 1970, justices issued about 150 full opinions a year, with the help of just two law clerks each. Now each justice has four law clerks and the court issues only about 80 opinions a year, relying on the clerks to screen out 99% of all the petitions for a hearing that are summarily rejected"), but I'm not entirely convinced even though I see some benefits from and the wisdom of doing so. Sunday, July 24, 2005
Weekend list Top 15 favourite TV shows of all-time* 1. Dallas 2. Dynasty 3. Family Guy 4. Oz 5. All in the Family 6. The Simpsons 7. Homocide: Life on the Street 8. Seinfeld 9. Law and Order 10. Bonanza 11. Monty Python's Flying Circus 12. Anamaniacs 13. The Big Valley 14. The Colbys 15. Night Court * not including sports or current affairs programs Steyn on WaPo columnist Richard Cohen unabletomoveon.org. That's funny. The rest of Mark Steyn's Chicago Sun-Times column is about a party (the Democrats) who, like Cohen, are obssessed with hanging chads and find too much politics in the court but who have no one to blame but themselves. Very unPC of Reese-Mogg to say In a column in the London Times in which he otherwise (somewhat) agrees with her that that the leadership of the party cannot be left solely in the hands of Tory MPs, William Reese-Mogg says of Theresa May, "She has been a Shadow minister, as well as chairman of the party. Because she was a woman, she was probably over-promoted in terms of experience early in her career." Writing the Iraq constitution Interesting article in The Guardian on the ethnic politics of writing the new constitution including possible name changes for the country (the Kurds want it renamed the Federal Republic of Iraq while the Sunnis want it called the Arab Republic of Iraq). Very promising line from Iraqi president Jalal Talabani who told paper: "Human rights and individual liberties, including religious freedom, will be at the heart of the new Iraq." While there is no direct quote about this, The Guardian reported that Talabani vowed that Iraq would never become an Islamic republic. Exhibit A in why we won't miss Justice O'Connor This is from a report in the Washington Post last week. Retiring Supreme Court of the United States justice Sandra Day O'Connor on her replacement, Judge John Roberts: "He's good in every way, except he's not a woman." Kristof on North Korea New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on what North Korea is good at: totalitarianism. Kristof explains: "Perhaps no country in human history has ever been as successful at totalitarianism as North Korea. Koreans sent back from China have been herded like beasts, with wires forced through their palms or under their collarbones. People who steal food have been burned at the stake, with their relatives recruited to light the match. Then there was the woman who was a true believer and suggested that the Dear Leader should stop womanizing: after she was ordered executed, her own husband volunteered to pull the trigger." To his credit, Kristof recognizes that "liberals should be embarrassed that it's the Christian Right that is taking the lead in spotlighting repression in North Korea." Indeed. I'm not sure whether Kristof's approach will work ("dragging North Korea into the family of nations" through direct talks, encouraging North Korea's economic integration including membership in the Asian Development Bank and continuing to feed starving North Koreans through the UN World Food Program), but that's because I'm not sure what to do about North Korea period. Still, it's nice to see a liberal is highlighting the plight of North Koreans. Quotidian "Humility, humility, humility, humility." -- St. Bernard of Clairvaux, when asked what the four cardinal virtues are, as quoted in Gillian R. Evans' Bernard of Clairvaux Cass Sunstein is (perhaps) right At first I read University of Chicago law professor Cass R. Sunstein's column in the Los Angeles Times and nodded approvingly. The gist of his argument is this: Despite the politicking before the appointment of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court that focused on naming a woman or Hispanic, "all this focus on demographics misses the most important point. What the court most needs is intellectual diversity. It should have people with a range of perspectives, different kinds of knowledge and different points of view." Sunstein has a point but one that is better applied to society than the courts. In life the only diversity that really matters is diversity of opinion -- the one diversity liberals anywhere (the media, the universities, think tanks, lobby groups, etc...) cannot tolerate. But Sunstein is wrong about the courts. There we want strict literalists. Yes, a diversity in expertises -- corporate law, division of powers, etc... -- might have benefits, but ultimately we should not want several justices who understand the intent of the framers of the Constitution and several who make it up, who see the document as a living tree. As seductive as Sunstein's column is, I don't know if he had this sort of diversity in mind. If he did, he's dead wrong (as usual). Want a better answer, ask a better question Burkean Canuck examines the issue Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson visited two weeks ago: "Why do Catholics vote Liberal?" BC suggests rephrasing the question: "Why do Canadians vote Liberal?" And his answer? Because, "Liberals are better at the politics." He also offers a few suggestions on how to turn that sad fact around; in two words: voter education. Three cheers for Guergis The CBC reports that Conservative MP Helena Guergis (Simcoe Grey) has called upon the government to stop giving aid to Red China citing its terrible human rights abuses, the fact that is has the largest army in the world, its the second largest economy, and that it has both a space and nuclear weapons program. Guergis said, "Every dollar that Canada gives to China, no matter how well intended, is a dollar that the Chinese government can spend on its military, space program and propping up other corrupt and abusive regimes like North Korea or Zimbabwe." Earlier this year, when called upon to end aid to Beijing, Minister of International Cooperation Aileen Carroll said, "We are helping China grow and influence it in the right way." Considering that we've given $1 billion to the country over the past decade, I can see its worked wonders. Perhaps former prime minister Jean Chretien was right when he said in February 2001 that Canada is too small to influence China. If a soccer game is cancelled, do the terrorists win? Inter Milan cancelled a four game friendly tour of England, they said, out of respect for the victims of terrorism. It's more likely they are scared. Terrorists 1, soccer players 0. As London mayor Ken Livingstone said, "I think that this is a very silly thing to do because it is playing the terrorists' game. They want to change the way we live." Saturday, July 23, 2005
Quotidian "I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers." -- Albert Camus, The Fall Terror in Beruit Hours after US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice visits a tourist section of Beruit, a bomb goes off, wounding 12. Lebanonese Tourism Minister Joseph Sarkis said the attack "is a message against the government, against national reconciliation and national unity." Michel Pharaon, state minister for parliament affairs, said "The Lebanese people will continue the march of national peace, freedom and democracy." Nicholls on Rae National Citizens Coalition vice president Gerry Nicholls has a few words to say about the speculation that former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae could someday lead the Liberal Party. Nicholls says: "According to news reports, some federal Liberals are pushing the idea that the former NDP Premier of Ontario should succeed Prime Minister Paul Martin. Actually, the idea does make some sense. After all, the NDP is virtually running the Liberal government right now, so why not make it official and get a real NDPer as leader." That's funny. It would also set up a fantastic dynamic of NDP leader Jack Layton attacking Rae for ... what? Having an identical agenda to the Tories? Nicholls then notes the favour Bob Rae did for Ontario: "Rae had one great achievement as premier: through his ineptness he conclusively proved that socialism didn't work, thus paving the way for the Common Sense Revolution. Imagine if he did that at the federal level!" Rae could lead a Liberal-NDP government, wreck the country, prove socialism doesn't work and then we can elect a Conservative government. There is actually merit to the argument and something I have thought about in the past. Perhaps the best chance the Conservatives will have to win a federal election is for the Liberals to cause a whole lot of misery first. I only hope we have someone like more Mike Harris leading the Tories when that happens and someone like either of his PC leadership predecessors. A most politically incorrect question Perry de Havilland at Samizdata: "Does a voice for 'moderate' Islam in Britain actually exist?" Arab world waking up to dangers of terrorism Never mind the killing of innocents, its the tourists that are staying away because of such killing that might turn Arabs against terrorism. John J. Miller posted on The Corner earlier today: "The terrorist attack in Egypt is obviously horrible -- current toll: at least 65 dead, more than 200 wounded -- and it's starting to look worse than the massacre at Luxor eight years ago. But violence such as this, as bad as it is, may have the good effect of causing the Arab world to become more serious about terrorism. As with Luxor, many of these latest casualties are tourists--and tourists are an enormous boon to the Egyptian economy. How many will want to travel there now? Speaking for myself, Egypt is very high on the list of places I would like to visit in my life. But if you gave me a free airline ticket and a wad of Egyptian pounds this morning, I probably wouldn't go." Bob Rae as Liberal leader Many conservative bloggers tend to think that if the Liberals were to be led by Bob Rae, Ontario would become a much more attractive place for the Conservative Party. Political Staples is but one example: "According to the Ottawa Citizen, former Ontario NDP Premier is being floated as the next leader of the Federal Liberals (hat-tip NealeNews). One can only hope. He was such a terrible Premier that this decision would do wonders for putting Ontario back in play." I think that the effect would be neutral. Some Ontarians will not be pleased with the former NDP premier leading the Liberals but at the same time he has the following going for him: 1) Canadians, er, Ontarians seem to have short political memories. 2) While he will drive some Liberals to the Conservatives (or more likely, to stay home), he will bring some NDP voters to the Liberals. Net result: a wash. 3) Having abandoned socialism for a centre-left Third Way politics he will appear more moderate than he really is; his image as an unscary moderate will be buttressed by some genuinely sane views on national security and foreign policy issues. 4) Having abandoned socialism he is, once again, a media darling. 5) He is not Stephen Harper or whoever will lead the Tories. 6) Did I mention that Ontarians have short political memories. We will fight them on the airwaves ... Financial Times reported Thursday: "On Wednesday the US House of Representatives passed an amendment that allows the US to broadcast television and radio programmes into Venezuela. The amendment, introduced by Connie Mack, a Florida Republican, is aimed at offsetting the perceived 'anti-American' influence of Telesur, a nascent satellite television channel majority funded by the Chávez government and set for a full on-air launch in September." For the record, Chavez criticized the Congressional move as yet another "imperialist" threat from the United States. Media puffs Rae Adam Daifallah examines media coverage of former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae which is mentioning him as a possible successor to Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin and, at the same time, noting his involvement in the development of the new Iraqi constitution. NDP party of youth? Not only is the NDP the party of old (discredited) socialist ideas, its MPs are no spring chickens either, a point point Stephen Taylor nicely illustrates. NDP caucus has one MP under 40 (Brian Masse and he's 37); Conservative caucus has 20 MPs that are under 40 years of age. Friday, July 22, 2005
Another link in the chain At the Weekly Standard, Stephen F. Hayes & Thomas Joscelyn note: "Many have argued, incorrectly, that the current Iraq-centric terrorist network suddenly appeared only after the U.S.-led invasion. That is, they argue that the jihadists established their complex system of safehouses, weapons caches, funding, training, and transportation only after the fall of Saddam." Hayes has made a career of illustrating the connections -- not definitive proof but neither easily dismissed -- between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Today he and Joscelyn report on how Ansar al Islam got money and support from Saddam Hussein's regime prior to 9/11 and was based in a Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq. Ansar al Islam has connections with Al Qaeda including contact in 2000 between an Ansar al Islam agent, Abu Wael, and Al Qaeda offering the latter safe haven in their camps in Iraq. A degree or two of separation is significant when dealing with the loose connection of Islamofascist terrorist networks and should certainly not be ignored or dismissed by anti-war liberals and paleoconservatives. Reforming the British Tories Former Tory chairman Theresa May argues in The Spectator that the membership of the party should decide the next leader, not the MPs. I offer this without any comment or judgement as to whether it it wiser to let the membership or MPs chose the leader: "There are those who say that only MPs know the leadership candidates well enough to make a proper judgment. That might be true if it weren’t for the fact that general elections are decided by people who, on the whole, don’t know the leadership candidates at all. In fact, if my colleagues really want to limit the right to elect the next leader to a handful of well-informed political representatives who understand the scale of the problem we face, then they should give the job to the 400-odd Conservative candidates who lost on 5 May, and not to the 200-odd who won!" Quotidian "To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into our, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome replicas of Himself -- creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over." -- Screwtape explains to Wormwood the difference between God and the Devil in C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil Thursday, July 21, 2005
Quotidian "Criminals might be victims of circumstances in the sense that few of them ever had a fair chance; but it is a mistake to forget that the only 'fair chance' they ever wanted was a chance for easy money." -- James Gould Cozzens, The Just and the Unjust Churches' tax exempt status Here are two things to think about when considering the tax exempt status of churches. From Gods of the Copybook Headings: "The simple reason churches should be tax exempt is that they are not profit seeking entities." Simple, but true. So simple, in fact, most people miss the truth of that statement. GCH also notes: "Legally, I believe, tax exempt status for religious institutions is established by different standards than other non-profits. That doesn't mean the same rules can't apply to both and remove any implication that religious organizations have some type of special protection under the law because they are of a religious nature." Good idea. For too many critics of religion, the religion thing gets in the way of understanding that churches are not profit seeking entities that, in fact, do a lot of good. And from Burkean Canuck: "Increasingly, this question is raised or, like it, 'Why should churches get all those tax breaks?' The short answer is, increasingly they don't. In most jurisdictions, churches pay property taxes for that portion of physical facilities they own that are used for such things as a church-administered day care, even in the case of a not-for-profit day care that just breaks even or takes a loss. And they pay GST on the purchase of property considered by the Canada Revenue Agency as not for specifically church purposes. Further, even where a church uses its facilities for things not presently considered taxable, it pays fees for service based on road or street footage, sewers, garbage and snow removal, and fees for all the inspections that any business would pay. All of this is paid for with after-tax, charitable donations. And then there are those who wonder why donations to charities -- including churches -- can get a charitable donation tax credit." BC then notes that the tax credit for donating to a church (or other charity) is a lot lower than the credit for donating to a political party, before turning his attention to the many good things churches do in society. More on Judge Roberts While most pundits are asking only one, maybe two questions about Judge John Roberts -- what are his views on abortion and his approach to constitution (living tree or do words mean what they say) -- a Supreme Court justice will have to rule on more issues than whether or not women have the right to kill their unborn babies. As Larry Kudlow notes, it appears that the whole conservative movement is behind President George W. Bush on this pick. Kudlow highlights the business and growth advocates' reaction to Roberts: "Roberts is also business’s first choice. He has the backing of Boyden Gray’s Committee for Justice, Stan Anderson, the legal advisor to the Chamber of Commerce, John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, Frank Keating, president of the American Council of Life Insurers, and former senator and pro-growth advocate Connie Mac. This is the first time business has weighed in significantly on judicial nominees, especially the supreme. And it’s a bad day for trial lawyers, a bad day for state and local regulators, bad day for expanded eminent domain takings clause supporters, a bad day for New Deal-like expanders of the commerce clause. It’s a good day for pro-business (large and small), pro-growth advocates. Roberts is a genuine free-market judge, who will not assume that business is always in the wrong, or that business is guilty until proven innocent." There's more. Read it here. Weekly Standard editors seem to disagree on Judge John Roberts At least they do if you believe the headlines -- "Bush Rises to the Occasion: The Roberts pick is courageous and important," by William Kristol and "The Safe Pick: Conservatives hoped for a demonstrably conservative nominee with a streak of daring. They didn't get one," by Fred Barnes. In fact, there is not as much disagreement as the headlines would seem to indicate. Barnes: "President Bush kept his promise in nominating John Roberts, a federal appeals court judge, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor the Supreme Court. Since Bush first announced for the presidency in 1999, he has vowed to name judicial conservatives who will interpret the law rather than legislate from the bench and fabricate new rights. Roberts, the president's first Supreme Court pick, qualifies as a judicial conservative, or as Republican Sen. John Cornyn called him, 'a mainstream traditionalist.' His confirmation will nudge the court to the right. And confirmation appears highly likely. But there's more to the Roberts choice than that. In choosing among judicial conservatives, there are safe picks and risky picks. With Roberts, Bush took the safe route. Related to this, there are cautious judicial conservatives and bold judicial conservatives. The president tilted to the cautious side in naming Roberts." Kristol: "With the Supreme Court pick of John Roberts, George W. Bush rose to the occasion. The occasion was an opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court. Bush seized the opportunity, in two ways: He moved the Court a solid step to the right (to speak vulgarly), and he elevated its quality. It's true that Roberts is a Rehnquist, not a Scalia or a Thomas. He'll be a little more incremental, a little more cautious, than some of us rabid constitutionalists will sometimes like. But he is a conservative pick, and a quality pick--and, to my surprise, a non-PC, non-quota pick. I had expected Bush to choose a woman. Indeed, I pointed in last week's editorial to several competent and qualified conservative women. But in preemptively yielding to gender quotas, so to speak, I made a mistake--and earned a well-deserved and well-argued rebuke from Charmaine Yoest at National Review Online, who said I (and others) had 'conceded too easily' to the pernicious claims of identity politics. She was right. And the president, weighing a truly important decision for the country's future, agreed with her. By simply going for the best person, by not worrying about walking out to the podium last night accompanied by a white male, Bush did something important and courageous. He showed that he knows that on really significant matters, one has to ignore political correctness and political pandering, and even political convenience. For this lesson, as well as for an intellectually impressive and politically sound choice, Bush deserves a lot of credit. I unreservedly give it to him." Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Please ... ... someone explain to me why Sarah Vowell has a column in the New York Times. Exhibit A for replacing Maureen Dowd's replacement with random high school newspaper columnists. Arthur Crook, RIP Arthur Crook, the great editor of the Times Literary Supplement from 1959 to 1974 passed away this week at the age of 83. Crook effectively edited the paper long before formally assuming the position of editor considering that he often took on the duties of editor while Alan Pryce-Jones was busy on the continent and in America socializing. According to Derwent May in his biography of TLS, Critical Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement, Crook will be remembered for a combination of charm and professionalism. Derwent notes that Hugh Trevor-Roper told Crook, "I never meet you without feeling that I am a much more splendid and wittier fellow than I am. What art you have!" If TLS had a political stance during Crook's tenure it was generally but not uniformly classically liberal. That said he also published reviews and essays critical of liberalism, some from the Left, some from the Right. As an editor Crook sought good writing, not fidelity to a particular worldview. While the Lit Supp (as the Brits call it) was deeply critical of censorship (such as the publication ban on Lady Chatterley's Lover), it advocated responsible self-censorship (notably in its review of William Burrough's hideous The Naked Lunch). It also had a lively correspondence section where questions about Crook's judgement in letting British historian and Soviet sympathizer E.H. Carr continue reviewing books on Russian and Soviet history often arose. What Crooks seemed to enjoy most was a vigorous debate over ideas. You'd want nothing less from an editor of literary periodical. TLS and the British literary scene were better off for Crooks' years at that venerable periodical's helm. NYT on SCOTUS This New York Times editorial says the Senate has a duty to vigorously probe into Judge John Roberts' thinking. It says: "One of the most important areas for the Senate to explore is Judge Roberts's views on federalism - the issue of how much power the federal government should have. The far right is on a drive to resurrect ancient, and discredited, states' rights theories. If extremists take control of the Supreme Court, we will end up with an America in which the federal government is powerless to protect against air pollution, unsafe working conditions and child labor. There are reasons to be concerned about Judge Roberts on this score. He dissented in an Endangered Species Act case in a way that suggested he might hold an array of environmental laws, and other important federal protections, to be unconstitutional. There are also serious questions about the attitude of Judge Roberts toward abortion rights. As a lawyer in the first President Bush's administration, he helped write a brief arguing that Roe v. Wade should be overturned." Roberts better think big government is grand and abortion is a constitutional right or he'll be categorized among the extremists. South Africa ignores Kofi -- and Zimbabwe's victims A couple of weeks ago I blogged about UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urging Africa leaders to speak out against their human-rights abusing colleagues to improve the continent's credibility, probably for the benefit of western donors. Specifically Annan said "What is important and what is lacking on the continent is [a willingness] to comment on wrong policies in a neighbouring country." I said, "Note that Annan did not say they should do anything about Mugabe and others like him, just speak out against them." Well, South Africa isn't even doing the bare minimum of speaking out against Zimbabwe's serial human rights abuser Robert Mugabe. Actually, its helping him. According to the Financial Times, a South African official has confirmed that his country has discussed with Mugabe a possible aid package in the form of a $1 billion loan. The FT reports that economists have some trouble with the dollar amount, noting that a billion dollars represents one-fifth of the Zimbabwean economy. (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Tuesday, July 19, 2005
More on Roberts Hugh Hewitt has the reaction of Senator Chuck Schumer (D, NY): "There's no question that Judge Roberts has outstanding legal credentials and an appropriate legal temperment and demeanor. But his actual judicial record is limited to only two years on the D.C. Circuit Court. For the rest of his career he has been arguing cases as an able lawyer for others, leaving many of his personal views unknown. For these reasons it is vital that Judge Roberts answer a wide range of questions openly honestly and fully in the coming months." As Hewitt says, "Schumer is telegraphing the strategy of the hard-left Democratic Senaors: To ask question after question which a nominees will not and should not answer, and then to oppose confirmation on the basis of these refusals." That's one take -- and it is true. But Schumer is also echoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and the effect is this: qualified means not having a brilliant legal mind or the necessary temperament but the correct politics. As Shannen W. Coffin says at NRO, "the special interests merely want a judge who is a sure vote for their agenda." He could have added Democrats to that conclusion. Coffin says if there is battle to get Roberts on the Supreme Court it is "a fight worth having." NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez urges Senate Republicans to fight for Roberts. K-Lo says: "Like Bork, former Manhattan prosecutor Miguel Estrada's name should be a verb by now. He unfortunately earned it the hard, ugly way — by being a punching bag for Democratic senators and left-wing interest groups. President Bush picked him for a seat in May 2001 on the D.C. Federal Court of Appeals and the Left subsequently set out to destroy him. ... When Estrada stepped aside after more than two years of vicious, degrading left-wing attacks, President Bush rightly said, 'The treatment of this fine man is an unfortunate chapter in the Senate's history'." As readers of Sobering Thoughts will know, I think that part of the terrible treatment of Miguel Estrada was at the hands of the Bush administration who did not come to his defense when he was smeared by the Democrats' unfair charges which included questioning whether he was authentically Hispanic. I hope that Bush does not leave Judge Roberts out to dry like he did Estrada and so many other fine public servants whom he has appointed and failed to fight for. That was short lived New York Yankees let the Texas Rangers score twice in the eighth inning and lose 2-1. BoSox beat Tampa Bay Devil Rays 3-1 to regain a half-game lead over the Bronx Bombers in the American League East. (The Baltimore Orioles are tied right now with the Minnestoa Twins; if they win, they will be tied with the Sox but if they lose they'll be tied with the Yanks.) Well, first was nice for the day it lasted. Quotidian "She had the kind of quiet, intensely quiet, dignity that comes from complete resignation to the chances of life." -- Willa Cather, "Old Mrs. Harris" Tory idiots And I'm not even talking about the Canadian variety. According to the BBC, Sayeeda Warsi, vice chair of the British Conservative Party, says (in the BBC's words) "Mr Blair should follow the example of ministers' engagement with IRA representatives." Okay? Maybe they are misrepresenting what Ms. Warsi is saying. Here are the direct quotes: "We must start engaging with, not agreeing with, the radical groups who we have said in the past are complete nutters." And: "We need to bring these groups into the fold of the democratic process. As long as we exclude them and don't hear them out, we will allow them to continue their hate." And more: "It may not achieve results immediately, but it may stop the immediate violence." As Samizdata's Johnathan Pearce notes: "You have got to hand it to the Conservatives. We tend to think of the party as being the party of Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and Robert Peel. It is also, as this moron demonstrates, the party also of Neville Chamberlain." Incredible admission The Washington Post reports Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's (D, Nev) reaction to the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court of the United States: "The president has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry." So Roberts is qualified by virtue of credentials but ... but, what? It appears that they will begin digging for ideological reasons to oppose him (read: abortion litmus test). Civilian deaths in Iraq Political Staples notices this: "Don't get me wrong, 9,250 civilian Iraqi deaths due to the US-led coalition is a tragically high number. But it well short of the hundreds-of-thousands that the anti-war coalition has been putting forward." Nice catching that, Greg. But remember, too, that before the liberation of Iraq, some liberals claimed that more than 4,000 Iraqi children died every month due to the sanctions. (Others claimed 250 Iraqis died every day due to the sanctions.) So in fact civilian casualties are lower than if Iraq wasn't liberated and sanctions were continued. Recall, too, that liberals used the supposed civilian death toll to argue for discontinuing sanctions until President Bush began talking about invading Iraq. Then liberals promptly changed their tune and urged that sanctions be given a chance to convince Saddam Hussein to give up his WMDs. All of which is to say that Iraq is better off today with Saddam Hussein than if he were left there -- and that is before considering the victims of his brutal regime. Never mind Disregard previous post. CNN is reporting DC Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John Roberts will be named to the Supreme Court. So much for it having to be a woman. Roberts has been on the bench for a mere 20 months and doesn't have much of a paper trail. Obviously the administration is looking for an easy time getting through the Senate. Supreme watch President George W. Bush will announce his Supreme Court nominee tonight at 9pm. The conventional wisdom over the last day or so has one of two Ediths -- Clement or Jones -- both of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals although the fact that Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Michael J. Luttig's children were dressed up today and in Washington is being taken as a sign it might be him. If you believe in the wisdom of crowds, Tradesports.com would indicate that it will be either Edith Jones or DC Circuit Court Judge John Roberts. Er, never mind, now its all Roberts. Over at Bench Memos, Robert Alt thinks it is Priscilla Owen: "Assuming that the mounting speculation is true, and that Clement is not the nominee, I would put my money on Priscilla Owen. She’s got the outside-the-federal-judiciary bona fides that Senator Specter has been crying for, she is from Texas, which raises her stock with Bush, and the leadership was insistent that she be the first judge pushed through after the filibuster logjam was broken, presumably to put her in a position to be elevated when O’Connor retired." I'm not convinced; I don't think the Senate leadership nor Bush wants that kind of fight again. I have to agree with Charmaine Yoest that it would be better for Bush not to pick a woman because by doing so Bush will be establishing the spot as one designated for women. It is a great column that you should read and consider especially the significance of her conclusion: "Even if the president nominates an Edith NOW doesn’t like, her nomination will represent the full-fledged establishment of the 'women’s seat' on the Court. But what a Pyrrhic victory for women. Feminists will have succeeded in further solidifying 'women' as a minority interest group, rather than professionals qualified for any opening on the Court independent of gender." For that reason and more Bush shouldn't pick a woman; unfortunately, because it will be politically impossible to get a non-woman judge through the Senate, especially considering Bush's penchant for not fighting for his nominees (ask Miguel Estrada and John Bolton), it's going to be a judgette rather than a judge. So much for picking the most qualified person for the job. My guess is that Bush will pick Judge Alice Batchelder of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, a person who does not try to conform law to her personal opinions. Also, I recall most Supreme Court nominees during the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton years being relative surprises; at least, few times were appointees on the early lists of potential nominees and the Washington media had not even noticed Judge Batchelder until this past week. My own preference if it has to be a woman is Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard. But I doubt that someone who led the Vatican delegation to the Beijing Women's Conference is going to be approved by the Senate. Check out NRO's Bench Memos for breaking news and the latest guesses. And, of course, post-announcement commentary. I'm sure SCOTUSblog is have something, too. Finally The New York Yankees capture the division lead for the first time since opening day with their exciting back-and-forth 11-10 win over the Texas Rangers. The lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the low-life Boston Red Sox 3-1. Monday, July 18, 2005
Most influential philosopher Gideon Strauss has links to several lists and provides his own. I don't have the energy to come up with a list and reasons myself but I disagree with the idea that the history of philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato; that statement is true, however, of Aristotle. I also disagree with Strauss for arguing that Hegel is more influential than Marx; Strauss is right to say that "every tiny little bit of long term influence that Marx is likely to have will be Hegelian" and that Hegel will likely be studied a century from now, but it would seem that Marxian philosophy has had a greater influence over the course of world events since the middle of the 18th century so far. (I would guess that Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer is likely to have a greater influence over the next 50 years than Marx, Hegel or anyone else on these lists.) As for who are the most influential philosophers in history, any list would have Aristotle, Plato, Augustine and Marx in the top five (and a close battle among Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke for the fifth spot). Bad news for Turkey The London Times reports that an EC-sponsored poll found that 52% of Europeans oppose Turkish entry into the European Union compared to 35% in favour. By country: "In Austria, opponents of Turkey’s membership out-number supporters 80 per cent to 10 per cent. Opposition is 74 per cent in Germany, 72 per cent in Luxembourg and 70 per cent in France and Greece. More people are opposed to Turkey joining than to any other potential member. In Britain, a relative majority is in favour, with 45 per cent for and 37 per cent against." Also, Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser has called for entry talks to be suspended. A problem that will solve itself The Guardian is fretting over what they percieve to be a problem within the Tories: that there will be no credible challenger to David Davis and David Cameron for the Conservative Party leadership. Yes the rules (if they are adopted on Tuesday) are cumbersome, yes there are divisions within the party but if Tory party members wanted someone other than Cameron or Davis as leader they could work together to choose someone else (perhaps another David, Willets). This article seems to be less one of reporting on division within the party than an attempt to foment division in the party. Zimbabwe needs democracy, but more importantly, they need property rights Roger Bates has an article in Economic Affairs that describes why democratic reform is insufficient to fix the problems of Zimbabwe which includes a currency in such crisis that "bank notes are printed on only one side and with an expiration date," banks collapse regularly and nearly 80% of the people are unemploymed: "But what caused the recent collapse in Zimbabwe? It is not the loss of freedom of the press, or unsound monetary policy, or high military expenditure, or low health expenditure--although all these factors have a negative impact. The real reason that Zimbabwe has collapsed is that there is no protection of private property. The executive rides roughshod over the judiciary in all matters of property, especially land rights. The result is ‘dead capital’, a term invented by Hernando de Soto, and total economic annihilation." Bates explains: "Zimbabwe provides the reverse of the good news offered by de Soto. In The Mystery of Capital, de Soto exhaustively demonstrated that where private property rights are delineated and enforced, economies grow rapidly. When someone can borrow against their one large asset (for nearly everyone this is their home) they can establish businesses, buy supplies, establish marketing programs, sell products and make a profit and their families can thrive. In some countries the vast majority of capital is dead--one cannot prove one owns it outright, and hence no capital market will lend against it." Quotidian "His hands healed and so did his heart, for even during the tensest struggle he looked a picture of contentment. And he was patient now, extraordinarily so, giving people the impression he had never been otherwise. Let a man bobble a hot one, opening the gate for a worrisome run, and he no longer jumped down his throat but wagged his head in silent sympathy. And sometimes he patted the offender on the surprised back. Formerly his strident yell was everywhere, on the field, in the dugout, clubhouse, players' duffel bags, also to their dreams, but now you never hear it because he no longer raised his voice, not even to Dizzy's cat when it wet on his shoes." -- Bernard Malamud, The Natural Sunday, July 17, 2005
Quotidian "The Conservative Party has never put back the clock a single second." -- Evelyn Waugh explaining why he didn't support the Conservative Party as quoted by Frances Donaldson in Evelyn Waugh, Portrait of a Country Neighbour. The politics of China's energy needs A comprehensive overview (is that an oxymoron?) in the Los Angeles Times. One tidbit worth noting: Ironically, China is arming Iran and making itself a nuisance to the United States but at the same time China is preparing for a time when Iran might use those arms to threaten world, including Chinese, access to Middle Eastern oil. That was quick Openly gay British Conservative MP Alan Duncan quit the Tory party leadership race practically before it began. Duncan made his announcement in a column for The Guardian, although that might be the problem: while he appears comfortable with that paper it is not the natural home for conservatives. In the column Duncan condemned the "Tory Taliban" for its out-dated views and criticized it for not having a Muslim MP. (Yes, the caucus meetings would be much better off with Muslim and gay MPs sitting beside one another.) Duncan says the party is headed toward political oblivion but my guess is that any familiarity Mr. Duncan will have with that particular phenomenon will be personal not party related. Keep an eye on Chavez The Boston Globe reports that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's recent actions -- an arms deal with Russia, arming and training a two-million strong militia -- is catching the attention of the United States. Chavez simply says he is modernizing the country's military and protecting the nation against imperialist threats but opponents worry about the dictator solidifying his position and eagerness to suppress political opposition. More worrisome is the fact that Chavez supports leftist causes throughout the hemisphere. He might have his eye on fomenting revolution beyond Venezuela's borders. Retired Venezuelan General Fernando Ochoa Antich wondered why Chavez was purchasing particular Russians arms: "Why is he buying a caliber of rifle popular among subversive forces in Latin America? ... The political support he gives to radical leftist movements makes him a continental menace." Heath, RIP Former Conservative British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath has passed away, less than a week after turning 89. He spent 50 years as an MP, more than half of those after he was defeated as Prime Minister in 1974, part of what this Guardian story refers to as the "longest sulk" in Westminster history. After being succeeded by Margaret Thatcher as leader of the Tories he said: "They have made a grave mistake choosing that woman." She did not make a mistake when she left him out of her shadow cabinet upon succeeding him or a cabinet post when the Conservatives regained power in 1979. Thatcher would not even consult with him and seldom invited him to official functions. Heath would be a constant critic of Thatcher and her policies. Heath will be remembered as the British Prime Minister who brought England into Europe and for the turmoil with unions although he did much more: he reneged on promised free market reforms and nationalized Rolls Royce. His reaction to Enoch Powell's 'river of blood' speech created division within the Conservative party. Resisting the conservatism epitomized by Thatcher and Reagan, he was often on the wrong side of history, but Heath never became political history. He continued to work on the wrong side by defending Beijing (most notably after the massacres at Tiananmen Square) and negotiating with Saddam Hussein. Obits on this prickly man who is often seen as a victim of tumultuous times but is as much a victim of his temperament can be found in the London Times, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian (and its editorial) and Associated Press. The difference between them and us Islamofascists use terror to kill, maim and frighten indiscriminately. The U.S. military, on the other hand, attacks, captures and treats. From the Army Times: "During a routine patrol in Baghdad June 2, Army Pfc. Stephen Tschiderer, a medic, was shot in the chest by an enemy sniper, hiding in a van just 75 yards away. The incident was filmed by the insurgents. Tschiderer, with E Troop, 101st 'Saber' Cavalry Division, attached to 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry Regiment, 256th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was knocked to the ground from the impact, but he popped right back up, took cover and located the enemy’s position. After tracking down the now-wounded sniper with a team from B Company, 4th Battalion, 1st Iraqi Army Brigade, Tschiderer secured the terrorist with a pair of handcuffs and gave medical aid to the terrorist who’d tried to kill him just minutes before." Do you think "insurgents" -- media code for Iraq-based terrorist) -- would do the same for us? The Army Times sight has video footage, too. (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs) No such thing as 'just the facts' Samizdata notes this quote from Arthur Koestler: "The journalist who is determined to give proof of his objectivity often succumbs to the temptation of maintaining silence with regard to concrete facts, because these facts are in themselves so crude that he is afraid of appearing biased." It reminds of what I've been told by leftists several times: "Facts are fascist." So this is what feminism is about now CBC.ca columnist Georgie Binks says it is time for potty parity, an "increase the ratio of women's toilets to men's in public restrooms in order to shorten lines for women." Really. Card to be replaced as chief of staff? Robert Novak says that Ed Gillespie, former RNC chair, was given the job of George W. Bush's lobbyist to get the president's judicial appointment approved to prepare him for the job of White House chief of staff taking over from Andrew Card who has held the job from day 1. The proof seems to be the fact that Gillespie was given an office in the West Wing. Nadagate New York Times columnist John Tierney wrote about the Karl Rove/Valerie Plame scandal-that-isn't yesterday and nicely summarized what is going on: "For now, though, it looks as if this scandal is about a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared, and a White House official who has not been fired for a felony that he did not commit. And so far the only victim is a reporter who did not write a story about it." The real scandal In his Chicago Sun-Times column Mark Steyn says that Valerie Plame and Karl Rove are distractions to the real issues -- suicide bombers and a nuclear Iran: "The Valerie Plame game is a pseudo-crisis. If you want to talk about Niger or CIA reform, fine. But if you seriously think the only important aspect of a politically motivated narcissist kook's drive-thru intelligence mission to a critical part of the world is the precise sequence of events by which some White House guy came to mention the kook's wife to some reporter, then you've departed the real world and you're frolicking on the wilder shores of Planet Zongo. What's this really about? It's not difficult. A big chunk of the American elites have decided there is no war; it's all a racket got up by Bush and Cheney. And, even if there is a war somewhere or other, wherever it is, it's not where Bush says it is. Iraq is a 'distraction' from Afghanistan -- and, if there were no Iraq, Afghanistan would be a distraction from Niger, and Niger's a distraction from Valerie Plame's next photo shoot for Vanity Fair. The police have found the suicide bomber's head in the rubble of the London bus, and Iran is enriching uranium. The only distraction here is the pitiful parochialism of our political culture." Saturday, July 16, 2005
Answer: A lesson in how to say very little and sound intelligent Question: What is the only use for David Brooks' New York Times column today? Yes, the hit and miss columnist missed today but it was close at the base. Red China/al-Qaeda links Burkean Canuck discusses the plausibility of such links (China money laundering for al-Qaeda) in light of the drug trade and the opium poppy trade in southeast Asia. Quotidian "Nothing dates people more than the standards from which they have chosen to react." -- Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time Tory candidate blogger Ajmer Mandur is running for the Tories in Kitchener-Waterloo (my riding when I went to university) and he has a blog. I would guess that a lot of candidates are going to blog and it will take some time for them (and their campaigns) to figure out exactly how to maximize this medium's effectiveness. My guess is that Tories will do this better in part because they need to be -- what better way to bypass the MSM than to talk to voters directly through a blog. So far I like Mandur's reaction to 7/7 ("It is time to take the lessons learned from that grief stricken day in September nearly four years ago and develop an anti-terrorism policy that balances Canada’s national security with the rights of all Canadians") but not his thoughts on healthcare ("I support the Canada Health Act, our universally accessible, publicly funded health care system because I believe that Canadians should have reasonable access to timely and quality health care services no matter where they live or their income level. This is a bedrock principle of our great country, Canada.") Still, on the whole, he's actively trying to engage potential voters and side-stepping the local media. (Hat tip: Political Staples) Matthew Parris endorses David Cameron London Times columnist Matthew Parris thinks that on paper David Davis has every advantage but for reasons he is at a loss to explain, Parris says David Cameron is the man most suited for Downing Street among the Tory leadership hopefuls. Eventually Parris fumbles around for a reason to support Cameron: "I’ll tell you what I like about Cameron. He is completely without swagger yet never without command. He has the courtesy of a leader. He treads softly. He does not rush to judgment yet leaves you in no doubt he exercises judgment. He is the most well-judged potential Tory leader we have seen in years." Parris denies that politics should ever be ideological warfare and that party leaders should make stark distinctions between themselves and their opponents. Parris continues: "He is not a hater. He is not a plotter. But he shows a worldly understanding of a party in which others are. He can be circumspect. He can stand back. He knows how and when to withhold comment. He knows how to listen. He is not impatient to advertise his opinions. Yet with all this he manages to convey the impression of a lively mind and an openness to the opinions and stories of others." All very nice but I think that these are qualities that impede leadership, not signify such. How disastrously wrong it would be for the Tories to follow Parris' advice. Friday, July 15, 2005
Box office blues I missed this last weekend but better late than never. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Govindini Murty, an actress, screenwriter and co-director of the Liberty Film Festival, says that the reason for declining box office receipts is that Hollywood is out of touch with half of America: "Hollywood's ruling liberal elites keep going out of their way to offend half their audience. Constant gibes about Republicans, Christians, conservatives and the military litter today's movies and award show presentations like so many pieces of trash on theater floors." Murty then provides a litany of movies with liberal themes (Revenge of the Sith, War of the Worlds, Kingdom of Heaven) and other Hollywood stunts (Chris Rock criticizing President Bush as the Oscars and the Oscars snubbing The Passion of the Christ) that demonstrate her point before suggesting that liberals in the entertainment industry would "rather go down with the ship" than turn their fortunes around by producing movies with conservative themes. She notes that since September 11, 2001, "no studio movie has been made supporting America's war on terrorism, or denouncing Islamic terrorism." In fact, conservative ideas are routinely nixed by studio execs. As Murty concludes: "Everyone — liberal and conservative — acknowledges that a once-great film industry is out of ideas and in dire shape. Wouldn't it be smart, then, to let some new ideas in from the right, and give everybody a real choice again at the box office?" I think this argument could be taken too far -- that offending Red State voters is hurting the movie industry -- but it makes sense that it is a piece, and perhaps a major piece, of the puzzle. Going forward whether it works or not Reuters reports: "European Union foreign ministers will agree on Monday to press on with a diplomatic initiative to try to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions despite gloom since the election of an Islamic hard-liner as president." Fools! As Michael Ledeen says today at NRO: "[Tehran has] already issued public statements regarding uranium enrichment which can best be summarized: If you’re nice to us, we’ll carry on with enrichment, and if you’re tough with us, we’ll carry on with enrichment." The enemy within Washington Post Charles Krauthammer on the European threat from within: "The most remarkable discovery is that Europe's second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants are more radicalized than the first. One reasonably non-political and non-radical Muslim activist, raised in the suburbs of Paris, explained himself (to the Wall Street Journal) as having "immigrated to France at the local maternity ward." The fact that native-born Muslim Europeans are committing terrorist acts in their own countries shows that this Islamist malignancy long predates Iraq, long predates Afghanistan and long predates Sept. 11, 2001. What Europe had incubated is an enemy within, a threat that for decades Europe simply refused to face." The clash of civilizations is not merely a military confrontation of the West versus Islamofascism fought between our armies and their worst regimes. It is a war for Islam: will the murderous, militant Islamists win or the moderates. Back to Krauthammer: "It is essentially a civil war within a rival civilization in which the most primitive elements are seeking to gain the upper hand. Sept. 11 forced us to intervene massively in this civil war, which is why we are in Iraq. There, as in Afghanistan, we have enlisted millions of Muslims on the anti-Islamist side. But what about the vast majority of European Muslims, the 99 percent who are peace-loving and not engaged in terror? They must also join the fight. They must actively denounce not just -- what is obvious -- the terrorist attacks, but their source: Islamist ideology and its practitioners." It is fashionable to say the Islamists are only 1% of the total Muslim population, but if that is true they have many supporters among the so-called moderate majority. That is not to say that true moderates are not the vast majority but that Islamists have more support than we are led to believe. Regardless, it is incumbent upon them, the moderates, to recapture their religion completely. We can help them by having zero tolerance of Muslim preachers of hate. Moderate Muslims are the vital soldiers on the second front: facing domestic Islamists. I haven't mentioned this in a while You can buy my book Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal directly from the publisher or from Amazon. If you are thinking of purchasing William Johnson's bio of Stephen Harper (which I reviewed here), you can get a good deal buying both my book and Johnson's at Amazon. Quotidian "People do not know what they are doing because they do not know what they are undoing." -- G.K. Chesterton, The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic Government limits and the limits of government Over at The Shotgun my friend Michael Dabioch notes that "At a time when water and power are crucial to our well being," during this hot and humid Toronto weather, "residents are being told to use less of them." The city is telling Torontonians to use less water or they will implement an outdoor water ban. The province is telling Ontarians to conserve power or there will be rolling blackouts. As Dabioch concludes, "If we are told not to use our water and electricity when we most need them, doesn’t this make you think that maybe, just maybe, the government is not doing a fantastic job managing our utilities?" Very nice point, Michael. Australia, China and the United States There is much to disagree with in Peter Hartcher's Sydney Morning Herald column that describes Australia's foreign policy balancing act but not his central point that Prime Minister John Howard is drawing Australia closer to both China and the United States. (The two most disagreeable parts of the column is its racialism and the claim that China has abandoned ideology.) Here's Hartcher's conclusion: "These [China and America] are the great powers between which Howard is balancing Australia - the restless superpower with a revolutionary agenda, and the rising great power seeking a stable global order to feed its economic development. Howard wants us to see him as being successful in Asia but as a central part of the white man's club, too; he wants America to see him as a great ally but he wants China to trust him, too; he is a successful domestic politician but an effective diplomat, too. It is enough balancing to give an acrobat vertigo." This seems an accurate description of Australia's foreign policy but I wish that Hartcher explored the significance of this fact instead of casting aspersions on Howard for not wanting "to go Asian" and following visits to yellow and brown lands with visits to white countries. Postrel on child labour Virginia Postrel has an excellent column in the New York Times on child labour in the developing world that corrects the misconceptions about this phenomenon. She says the image of millions of children in sweatshops simply does not jive with reality because "most of the 211 million children, ages 5 to 14, who work worldwide are not in factories," but rather work in agriculture and often for their parents. Few are paid for their work. More importantly, parents have their children work not because they value work over education but because the family needs the labour or little income the children bring in. Studies find that as income rises and where schools are available, children get an education but as income declines, children return to work. The UN and the internet Over at Samizdata, Adriana Cronin has concerns about rumblings within the UN that it might want to take control of the internet: "[T]hose members of the UN whose rule at home has nothing to recommend them such as Syria, China or Ghana ... claim that the U.S. government has undue influence over how things run online. Now they want to be the ones in charge." News.com reports: "At issue is who decides key questions like adding new top-level domains, assigning chunks of numeric Internet addresses, and operating the root servers that keep the Net humming. Other suggested responsibilities for this new organization include Internet surveillance, 'consumer protection,' and perhaps even the power to tax domain names to pay for 'universal access'." Do we really want China, Ghana and Syria making decisions about internet consumer protection and universal access? Is Kadare worth honouring? Writing in The Spectator, Stephen Schwartz criticizes the Man Booker International Prize committee for awarding its first-ever prize to Ismail Kadare, whom Schwartz says is erroneously described as an Albanian dissident. Schwartz argues that Kadare was a communist shill and that the MBI jury, which included an "authentic dissident," one Azar Nafisi (author of Reading Lolita in Tehran) and Argentine author and literary critic Alberto Manguel, should have recognized as much. Schwartz accuses Kadare of "parading" as a dissident when in reality he wrote paeans to Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. Here are two particularly critical paragraphs: "In his MBI acceptance speech Mr Kadare referred to himself as one of 'a tiny minority in that boundless, hopeless desert called Socialist Realism'. But before his flight to Paris 15 years ago, Mr Kadare delivered a speech titled 'The Literature of Socialist Realism is Developing in the Struggle Against Bourgeois and Revisionist Pressure.' Therein he declared, 'In their spirit, in their content, even in their style and intonation, many of the works of the present-day decadent bourgeois literature are reminiscent of the Bible, the New Testament, Koran, the Talmud, and other tattered remnants of the Dark Ages.' ... Albanians are overwhelmingly Muslim, but Hoxhaite communism spared no believers, whether of Western or Eastern inspiration. Mr Kadare’s own religion, a devotion to communist power, was visible in his poetry, including verses well known to readers of Albanian, such as this: With you, the [Communist] party Even terrible pain Is finer than any joy...." I must admit that I know very little about Kadare but Schwartz's criticism sounds similar to those, such as Solomon Volkov, who maintain that Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich was not a closet anti-communist (including myself). Perhaps this issue wont' be settled but I find Schwartz's criticism a little harsh and unforgiving. It is possible that Kadare did what Shostakovich's defenders claim the composer had done: include a few pro-regime lines here and there to curry favour with his employer and ensure continued promotions and patronage even while including other cryptic criticisms in his art. I don't buy that argument for Shostakovich, at least not after reading Laurel E. Fay's Shostakovich: A Life (which effectively demolished Volkov's fraudulent Testimony), but it could be a defensible, even likely argument in other cases. I acknowledge that artists living under communist rule had difficult lives and sometimes lived hypocritical lives. I understand that not only their livelihood but their lives were often on the line when their music did not serve the interests of the state and communist party. But those who defended the regime, even as an act of self-preservation, must be held morally accountable. What that means exactly I'm not sure, but I do know that means not honouring those who even probably celebrated communist regimes. Whether or not Kadare is one such artist I must declare myself agnostic. Of course, not everyone thinks Kadare exaggerated his dissident credentials. As I noted yesterday, Jay Nordlinger has a completely different view of Kadare. Thursday, July 14, 2005
Rehnquist to stay So reports Fox News. Chief Justice William Rehnquist announced that he plans to remain chief justice and perform his duties as long as his health permits him to do so. It is being reported that perhaps "the chief justice won't be so quick to step down because getting up and going to work each day helps him battle his disease and stay in a healthy frame of mind." The advantage of this Rehnquist announcement is that it limits the political considerations President George W. Bush must make in appointing a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Another advantage is that it gives Judge Michael McConnell, if he is appointed, a year on the Supreme Court, giving him some experience before being named chief justice. The beautiful game and the never ending season In column for Reuters, Mitch Phillips laments the long European soccer season, noting that just 49 days after winning the Champions League Cup, Liverpool has begun its defense. I don't know why one would be displeased that a game as wonderful and artful as soccer doesn't take a longer holiday; I, for one, wish there was more (soccer, that is). Phillips does note, however, that the best players who represent their countries and play for the international squads could be in for a long 12 months: "Once August arrives, the league seasons will begin their trudge through autumn, winter, spring and into summer again with the World Cup finals - the sport's pinnacle. Should a Europe-based player hoist that trophy on July 9, 2006, he could do so after an entire 12 months of football. He would then have a week or so to celebrate before the Champions League cranks into action and the circus starts up all over again." I guess that players do deserve a break, but I'm already lamenting that a year from now the 2006 World Cup in Germany will be over and it'll be another four years 'til the next one. Juve gets leg up on AC Milan Italian soccer powerhouse Juventas, who edged out AC Milan in the final weeks of the season to become Serie A champs, bought Arsenal captain Patrick Vieira for $24.38 million. The 29-year-old midfielder will be the third member of the 1998 World Cup-winning French squad to start on Juve's line-up this coming season and quite an addition he is -- he's a defensive gem who helped lead Arsenal to the FA Cup this year. This move has caused some misery in our house -- my 14-year-old son is an Arsenal fan and, like all the males in the family, an AC Milan fan. This is especially so considering that there is an unexplained hold-up on the transfer of Serie A leading scorer Alberto Gilardino from Parma. The bad news for Juve fans in Canada is that it is highly unlikely that Vieira will join Juventas when they tour North America later this month, including a likely August 3 date in Toronto. Yeah Yanks The Bronx Bombers just defeated the loathesome Boston Red Sox 8-6, pulling within a game-and-a-half of the divsion leaders in the standings. What makes it even sweeter is that Curt Schilling allowed two runs in the ninth. In Fenway Park. Putting conservatives in a box Burkean Canuck says that conservatives come in all different shapes, shades and stripes: "I know that among conservatives there are those who like 'both kinds of music' (country AND western), but, also, those who like music in the western classical tradition, others who are aficionados of various kinds of jazz, of middle-of-road pop, various strains of rock and roll, hip-hop and rap, and 'world music.' Some like monster trucks and NASCAR while others' cultural tastes run more to live theatre." And, of course, there are conservatives who like monster trucks and live theatre. Including yours truly. Quotidian "Life in itself is not a ladder; it is a see-saw." -- G.K. Chesteron, The Well and the Shallows Muslims and Darfur Joseph Britt says in the Washington Post that Mulsims are not taking enough of an interest in the slaughter of their brethren in Darfur. (Though not synonymous, when the word Arab is used it usually also means Muslim.) The janjaweed is an Arab/Muslim miltia who kill Muslims (and Christians) in the Darfur region of Sudan while the Arab (and Muslim) dominated Sudanese government, at best looks away, but which is most likely enabling the genocide. So where is Egypt, a predominantly Arab and Muslim nation that shares a large border with Sudan? So while Western diplomats, notably Americans, work "feverishly to stop the massacres, rapes and forced relocations that the Sudanese government has employed as its weapons of choice," and Nigerians supply a token (but ineffective) peacekeeping force, Arab countries are doing ... nothing. Why? Half right Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke, both of the Nixon Center in Washington, write in the International Herald Tribune that Islamists have opened a second front: Europe. They say: "The London bombings captured with photographic precision exactly where we are in the so-called war on terrorism. It is not more 9/11s we must worry about, but more Madrids and Londons. Harassed as it is, Al Qaeda has opened up a second front in Europe that will keep Europeans pinned down while the big war grinds on in Iraq." These seems exactly correct except that even if the United States, Britain and their allies were to abandon Iraq, the terrorism in Europe would not disappear. Leiken and Brooke point to the dual threat of Islamists: "We can distinguish two types of candidate Muslim terrorists. There are the 'outsiders': alien dissidents, typically asylum-seekers or students, who gained refuge in liberal Europe from anti-Islamist crackdowns in the Middle East. More recently, security services have widened their attention to encompass 'insiders': European-born descendants of guest workers recruited to shore up Europe's post-war 'economic miracle'." The former dictates smarter immigration policies; the latter the need to crack down on the preachers of hate that too many Western leaders have turned a blind eye to in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism. McConnell for SCOTUS New York Times columnist David Brooks is exactly right in advocating Michael McConnell, a former law professor and current judge, for a spot on the Supreme Court. Indeed, he would make not only an excellent justice but would be a great replacement for William Rehnquist as Chief Justice. Brooks says that because President George W. Bush is choosing a Supreme Court justice and "not a programming choice" to replace a television morning host, considerations of gender, ethnicity and even resume take a back seat to a candidate's thinking: "Ideas drive history, so you want to pick the person with the biggest brain." And McConnell is on the right side of the most important issue in the United States today, namely the role of religion in the public square. He is not a seperationist but rather a neutralist who argues forcefully, rationally and passionately (yes, you can be all three) that permitting religion in the public arena is not the same as declaring an official religion. He is a judge who recognizes that not permitting religion a voice is not neutral, it's anti-religion. For this and many other reasons, Judge McConnell should be elevated to Justice McConnell. America doing its part for Africa The Associated Press reports that Laura Bush is in Africa, paying respect to the deceased of Rwanda's genocide and visiting schools in Tanzania that were set up with U.S. assistance. The Rahma Madrasa Pre-Primary school in Zanzibar, Tanzania is part of an American project to help "the often-disenfranchised population educate its children in its own tradition." While there is much hand-wringing over the idea that the West doesn't care about Africans, it is far from clear that African governments have shown any more concern for their own citizens. Thus, the United States helps establish schools there: "The modest structure in Zanzibar — a vast improvement over the many huts of mud and thatch that Bush passed to get there — is one of 16 schools on the island set up with $1,000 each in U.S. seed money and additional grants." Kasyanov is the new Khodorkovsky The Washington Times reports that Russian prosecutors are investigating former prime Mmnister Mikhail Kasyanov on possible fraud and abuse of office charges associated with the purchase of a house he purchased through front companies. The criminal investigation raises new concerns that "the government of President Vladimir Putin is using the courts to intimidate or silence critics." It may very well be true that Kasyanov is has committed a crime, just as it is possible that Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky was actually guilty of a crime. The more important point, however, is that criminal investigations and prosecutions are political weapons in Putin's Russia and therefore any charges and convictions are tainted by the stench of political corruption. Kasyanov is likely to run for president in 2008 and it is widely assumed the investigation is a warning that he might want to reconsider his plans. 'Giving back' -- what private enterprise does At NRO, John Tamny responds to advocates of the estate tax who argue for its retention (the House voted in April to rescind the death tax and the Senate will soon consider it) by claiming that the wealthy should give back to society, a society that enabled them to prosper. Tamny notes: * Charles Schwab, the 68th richest American, made investing in the stock market easy and affordable for the middle class. In doing so he helped launch an investment boom that an increasing number of Americans are able to participate in. * Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the 234th richest American, has developed a drug (Abraxane) that is injected into cancerous tumors. The tumors feed on Abraxane, only to be wiped out by a cancer-killing 'Trojan Horse' within. * It is estimated that Wal-Mart stores save consumers $100 billion a year. In other words, Wal-Mart’s customers get a raise every time they shop there. Unsurprisingly, Wal-Mart’s heirs and executives take up spots four through eight on the Forbes 400. * Can anyone imagine living without Google, Amazon, and travel websites such as Expedia? Internet trailblazers Sergey Brin and Larry Page (43), Jeff Bezos (38), and Barry Diller (215) are all Forbes 400 members. That the individuals behind the products and companies that improve our lives often reside in the Forbes 400 should not surprise us. Indeed, the greater a person’s wealth, the more likely than not that he or she did something extraordinary that benefited others. 'Giving back?' High profits are the surest sign that someone has given back. Can the same be said for entrepreneurial failures?" Indeed, it is hard to imagine government programs that benefited individuals as much as Schwab, Soon-Shiong and the Waltons have. And Tamny provides but a few examples. In An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith said a person, "By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Red China's blood lust LifeSite's report on the latest attempt at a forced abortion: "A Hong Kong woman, visiting her family in June on China’s mainland accompanied by her two children, was surrounded by eight 'family-planning' officers and threatened with a forced abortion for violating China’s one-child policy. The Hong Kong paper The Apple Daily reports that the officers surrounded the 31 year-old woman at a relative’s home in central Hunan province where she was visiting. They then tried to drag her to a hospital to forcibly abort her 6-month old unborn baby, ignoring the fact that as a citizen of Hong Kong, the woman was not subject to the one-child policy. 'Hong Kong is part of China and also follows China’s policies,' the officials claimed, according to an AFP report. They then stripped her of her travel documents. She was freed after being allowed to contact Hong Kong immigration officials by phone, who warned the family planning officials that their actions were illegal." I say latest, but who knows. Probably only a few Chinese women who are coerced into having abortions ever get to share their story. Simpson, Staples on Catholic voters Yesterday, Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson had a column in which he threw up his hands in resignation trying to explain why Catholics in Ontario and Atlantic Canada are so much more likely to vote Liberal than non-Catholics. He concludes that there is no compelling reason. (I would add that there is no compelling reason for anyone to vote Liberals but that's another issue.) Over at Political Staples, Greg Staples makes an excellent point -- Catholic voters are not monolithic -- before making a mistaken point: "But Catholics, like every other religious group are not monolithic. You can sluff people off as CINOs or Cafeteria Catholics but there are large numbers of pro-choice Catholics, pro-SSM Catholics, pro-death penalty Catholics, pro-War in Iraq Catholics." With all due respect to Greg, I would argue that there is no such a thing as a pro-abortion or pro-SSM Catholic; they've excommunicated themselves from the Church by their refusal to abide her teachings. But back to Greg's original point that Catholics are not monolithic. They are from numerous ethnic and racial backgrounds, different income and education levels, have legitimately different views on numerous issues, etc... While it is sometimes useful to talk about various groups and voting patterns, it is more difficult to understand the motivations for voting for a group as large as Catholics, a cohort that makes up 30% of the Ontario electorate and 40% of the Atlantic Canada electorate. All this reminds me of an old joke about Catholic Canadians fidelity to the Liberals: Most Canadian Catholics believe that the only question St. Peter will ask them at the pearly gates is whether or not they have voted Liberal all their life. Long titles I thought that Byron York's book had a ridiculously long title -- The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President--and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time. But then I saw the title of Rod Dreher's book: Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party). Dreher beats York 233 to 189 characters, although he beats him by only one word (34-33). The ultimate one-party state Want to know about the state of Canada? The Liberals may do what the Conservative couldn't (or didn't want to): bring the government down. From Reuters: "Having fought all spring to save their minority government, Liberals are now mulling the tricky question of whether to allow their own downfall in the autumn to take advantage of polling strength." The Liberals are polling 5-12 points ahead of the Tories and that is tempting Prime Minister Paul Martin to break his vow to hold an election after Judge John Gomery releases his report, expected in December. Reuters reports: "Part of Martin's problems is optics. When it looked like his 10-month-old government was going to collapse in April, he went on national television to plead for a reprieve until after the inquiry makes its final report in mid-December into allegations that party members demanded kickbacks in return for lucrative government contracts. His team recognizes that if he openly calls an election before that report, or puts forward legislation obviously designed to fail, it may look opportunistic." But then again, promises and credibility aside, a chance for electoral victory and thus vindication, would be enticing. Martin desperately wants a mandate and he could claim that even a minority government, after all that has happened over the past eight months, demonstrates that Canadians want the Liberals "to get on with the business of governing." It would be a bold move which is the one reason Martin might not do it. Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Herald on Moores A fair assessment of the legacy of former Newfoundland Frank Moores who died this past week in the Halifax Herald. It concludes: "The controversies aside, Frank Moores was a larger-than-life figure, renowned for his charm, wit and enthusiasm for the project at hand. In death, he will be remembered for those qualities, as well as for being the politician who shook Joey Smallwood from power." Ledeen on Jews and the new Jews Michael Ledeen examines how Middle Eastern politics and the desire to keep Arab money in London has prevented the British from facing the truth about the civilizational challenge the West faces (that the threat is Islamofascism). Ledeen says that when Tony Blair highlighted countries hit by terrorists in recent years he did not mention Israel or Iraq; the latter is inreasingly facing the same challenges from Islamists -- and the same slurs from the far left and far right in the West. Latest (and last) Nordlinger installment from Albania Jay Nordlinger's last Impromptus column has much good reading, as usual. I liked this observation: "In Lezha — a largely Christian town in Albania — we see something new under the sun. At least it is new to me. I’m talking about a new monastery. Have you ever heard of a new monastery? Weren’t monasteries supposed to be new in, say, 1250? But monasteries in Albania must be new — so this one is." And this one: "Modern history’s most famous and important Albanian is Ismail Kadare, the writer. ... And I hear a marvelous story about him. He was at some dinner in Paris, at which speaker after speaker denounced Bush, the United States, and the War on Terror. Everyone applauded, of course. And then Kadare got up to speak, saying that anti-Americanism was obnoxious, that America was shouldering the responsibility of free men and women, etc. And the same people who had applauded the earlier speakers — applauded him even more robustly. The lesson: Sometimes people simply go along with some approved line; you may not know what they really think." And these from Montenegro: "Back to Podgorica for a minute: This used to be 'Titograd,' and I am reminded that one of the blessings — a small blessing — of the collapse of Communism was the dropping of ugly, wrong names for the readoption of right ones." And, lastly, this: in a hotel dining room in Tuze, Montenegro hang signs on the wall with photos and quotations from Vince Lombardi and Abraham Lincoln. A small world, Nordlinger notes. Window to St. Bob's mind Here are two lines from Bob Geldolf as quoted in the introduction to How to Share the New Money Tree: Creative Fundraising for Today's Nonprofit Organizations. "I want to get rich, get famous and get laid." (Bob Geldolf in a 1981 interview) "We can build wells and give them a life. I prefer to do that." (Bob Geldolf in a 1985 interview) As I noted last week, here's what Geldolf told the BBC in January of this year: "[Africa] bores me profoundly" and that he would prefers to focus on music rather thanpolitics but he isn't "successful enough." It seems that St. Bob has come 'round full circle. Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Bloomberg doing his bit to make citizenship meaningless This from the New York Sun today: "Reversing a policy that City Council members said dates back to the pushcarts of the 1930s, the city opened vending to illegal immigrants yesterday. Mayor Bloomberg signed into law a bill repealing the provisions of the food and general vendor laws requiring that officials check the citizenship status of license applicants. Vending was the last of more than 50 licenses the Department of Consumer Affairs regulates to use immigration status as a criterion for certification. That, Mr. Bloomberg said, contradicted an executive order he passed in September 2003 that forbids city employees from asking immigration status except in certain criminal investigations. 'This legislation will bring the vending law into conformity with the rest of city law and with the policy of this administration,' the mayor said. The law was celebrated in immigrant communities, where legislators and local leaders have often criticized the mayor for not doing enough to enforce the executive order. Critics of the law, meanwhile, said it goes against federal immigration laws and sends the wrong message. 'It's a continuation of the city moving in the wrong direction,' the leader of the council's Republican minority, James Oddo, said. 'This is the last permit that allowed the city to ask the immigration status. Instead of removing it, I think we should be asking the status when we hand out all of our permits.' Mr. Oddo, who represents a Staten Island district, added that a larger concern is that the city will be providing a new form of documentation to some illegal immigrants, which he said is a mistake in a post-September 11 context. ... 'This is a form of discrimination, this is a form of harassment,' a Brooklyn Democrat, Charles Barron, who was the council's main sponsor of the law, said yesterday. 'As an immigrant you can pay taxes, you can die in Iraq, but you can't get a vending license. Come on now, that doesn't make sense.' ... She [Maria Samba, an illegal immigrant and illegal vendor] said her next stop was to pay a ticket for illegally vending, but outside City Hall, she was pure elation. 'I won what I wanted,' she said. 'I won my dream'." There are practical considerations (post-9/11 security) that would suggest this new policy is, at best, boneheaded. But more importantly, it is misplaced compassion by threatening support and public goodwill for legal immigration. Illegal immigrants -- "undocumented workers" who have already broken the law -- do not deserve compassion, understanding or even bureaucratic breaks. They are law-breakers who deserve deportation. Instead, Nurse Bloomberg and the Democrats have rewarded those illegals who do not even have visas to work in the United States to compete with thousands of American citizens and landed (legal) immigrants in applying for a street vending license, for which there is a backlog of thousands of applications. Great going Bloomberg. This is interesting According to Danielle Smith, Canada's Justice Minister Irwin Cotler is in Israel for the Maccabiah Games (the Jewish Olympics) where he is competing for the badminton title. No word on whether he is any good. I'll resist making some joke about using the Supreme Court of Canada to give him a leg up on the other side. The march of free trade Sri Lanka has signed a free trade agreement with Pakistan. The Pakistan Times reports: "With the start of free trade agreement between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the annual trade volume between the two countries was likely to double within the first year due to the increase in trade in tea, textiles, betel leaves and other items." Sri Lanka signed a free trade deal with India in 1998 and is negotiating such deals with Bangladesh and Maldives. You can dress it up with a laptop but... Gods of the Copybook Headings on an Arizona high school that is replacing all of its textbooks with computers: "As of September every student will be issued a laptop. Before people start gushing about how innovative this all is, can it please be kept in mind that McLuhan was wrong, the medium is secondary to the message. If the content is still politically correct history and 'new' math (which changes names but is still anti-conceptual nonsense) then nothing has changed. Napoleon once described Talleyrand, his Janus-faced foreign minister, as 'Shit in a Silk Stocking.' Much of modern education can be described using the same terms." Nordlinger on Albania (again) Jay Nordlinger files another Impromptus column from Albania. Lots of interesting stuff including this tidbit on Albania as American ally: "Albania, you know, is a staunch supporter of the United States in Iraq. And by 'supporter,' I mean on-the-ground ally. They may not contribute many troops — but as a percentage of their forces, it’s nothing to sneeze at. I have mentioned this before in Impromptus. The ambassador to the U.S. referred to the Albanian troops in Iraq as the cream of Albania’s youth. And the prime minister has pointedly said that Albania will not pull a Spain — he used almost precisely that language (naming Spain, specifically)." And this bit about the lack of making the erstwhile communist rulers accountable for their crimes: "One problem, of course, is that a huge number of people were complicit in Communist rule — in Albania and elsewhere. Where do you start? As my friend says, people walk the streets of Tirana who ordered the execution of innocents — or who performed the deeds themselves. Those now in power are 'the sons and daughters of bad men,' from the Communist era. You can’t expect them to indict their parents." What is the government afraid of? A press release from the office of Senator Terry Stratton: Government Afraid to broadcast committee hearings on civil marriage bill: Denies Canadians opportunity to see Senate at work. OTTAWA – Manitoba Conservative Senator Terry Stratton, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, expressed surprise that the government decided against televising the public hearings on the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. The Committee is hearing testimony from Justice Minister Irwin Cotler on the civil marriage bill, known as C-38. The government has decided against broadcasting C-38 hearings, but will be televising Senate hearings on Bill C-48, the NDP-Liberal budget. "The explanation that a camera crew could only cover the meetings of the National Finance committee on Tuesday is ridiculous," said Senator Stratton. "And it is an affront that Canadians cannot see and hear the testimony of Minister Cotler for themselves." "Bill C-38 is an issue that goes to the very heart and core of the beliefs of many Canadians. I honestly believe that Canadians have the right to know what is going on here. The cost of a television crew would have been minimal," said British Columbia Conservative Senator Gerry St. Germain. Office of Senator Terry Stratton It is amazing that the government has the power to prevent to public from seeing the process by which the foundational institution in society (the family) will be redefined (by changing the definition of marriage). What is the government hiding? The truth? The there is opposition to this change? That there are good arguments for maintaining the traditional definition of marriage? That the committee hearings are a farce? That the government is determined to ram this redefinition down the country's throat, one way or another? Conservative politics In the Corner Mark Krikorian complains (rightfully) that Republican lawmakers (and the President) are not saying anything about immigration even though the grassroots is concerned about the issue. He says there could be a political price to pay. The following line is something useful for all conservatives to remember as they crowd the centre on a host of issues: "An important role for a conservative party is to constructively articulate and channel public anger over policies imposed on them by the elite -- like busing, affirmative action, abortion on demand, etc." Monday, July 11, 2005
Thoughts on Douglas Fisher's column (II) Sun Media columnist Douglas Fisher has some thoughts about Bill C-38, the government's legislation imposing same-sex marriage upon the nation: "... how was the coup of legalized same-sex marriage achieved? Who shaped it, who co-ordinated it from a long-shot prospect a few years ago to a clinched deal last month? ... my theory is that to a remarkable degree, same-sex marriage was an 'inside job' carried out within the federal Department of Justice, among the law clerks of Canada's courts, and lawyers (largely women) in tune with the aims of gay organizations such as EGALE Canada. When the time came for crucial decisions supporting same-sex marriage, the senior courts were ready. Indeed, by the time the House of Commons finally dealt with the matter, the issue was already a 'fait accompli.' Unless a provincial legislature or the House of Commons was willing to use the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution -- and none were -- it was the courts' decisions that effectively became the law of the land (witness the flood of same-sex weddings, well before the new legislation passed in the Commons). Long before even the court stage was reached, the single most important promoter of gay rights in Canada was Svend Robinson, the now-retired NDP MP from Burnaby. The first elected federal politician to come out of the closet with a combination of social gall, bravery and stamina, Robinson rarely let a chance pass to advance the cause of homosexual rights. He was later joined by a gay member of the Bloc caucus, Real Menard. SUPPORTED BY MEDIA It was apparent to me that this duo had the approval of most of the several hundred reporters, producers, and researchers who cover federal politics. This media gang had become favourable to homosexual rights, just as they had become favourable to the end of capital punishment and a generally open abortion policy long before these matters were decided in the political arena. This journalistic support showed up most particularly during the last election, especially in the hostility of reporters (again, largely women) toward Stephen Harper over his allegedly backward stance on same-sex marriage. Much of this pro-gay edge in the media was blazoned after 1989 by one newspaper, the Globe and Mail, and its editor-in-chief in the 1990s, William Thorsell. Rarely a week went by that the Globe did not advocate for homosexual rights in features, editorials, and news stories, all making the vigorous case for fair play and full citizenship for this too-long-persecuted minority. CBC-TV news and public affairs also shifted into this attitude, seeing the homosexual 'status quo' as an undeserved injustice, with the French side (Radio-Canada) leading the way, long years before their English cousins took up the cause. I have no conspiracy theory of a single mind or team that executed the legislative coup of same sex-marriage. But I am sure when the history is written in the next decade or so, it will have, aside from the media and two prominent gay politicians, women lawyers at its core." What an incredible, brave and truthful column. Incredible and brave because it is truthful. He named names. He exposed how the Liberals operate. He described why Ottawa is dysfunctional, where special interest groups and lawyers have more sway than MPs and the people who elect them. Why didn't any other MSM journalist explore the themes Fisher did in his weekend column? Thoughts on Douglas Fisher's column (I) On the weekend, Douglas Fisher wrote in his Sun Media column that David Frum would make the ideal conservative leader, especially if Michael Ignatieff eventually becomes the Liberal leader. Put aside for the moment the unlikely circumstance of two Canadians who have spent the better part of their professional life working in the United States competing for the job of Canadian prime minister. Fisher is intrigued by Frum's and Ignatieff's similarities: they both work in the U.S., both come from famous Canadian families, both are articulate and both think a lot about global issues. Fisher outlines an intriguingly possible event but not a convicing argument for why it could or should happen. Here's the case for Frum becoming leader of the Tories: he has the best chance of leading the party to victory. He is articulate, well-known and a principled conservative -- perhaps the only prominent conservative in Canada to have all three of those attributes. Yes, he's partisan and perhaps "too conservative for Canada" but he also seems to recognize that conservatives can only win when engage in ideological combat. Successful conservative politicians -- Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Mike Harris, Newt Gingrich -- all were fiercely partisan. (You could make the case that George W. Bush benefited from a brutally partisan presidential campaign in 2004 even if he was not as overtly partisan as some of the others I've mentioned.) Frum would draw sharp distinctions between the Conservatives and Liberals providing Canadians with a clear choice; that, I think, is the only hope for Conservatives in this country. Whether Frum would take the pay cut to run for federal politics is all together another matter. Quote of the day James Taranto in Best of the Web Today: "Today everyone knows that when Ted Kennedy opens his mouth, slander pours out. He could accuse a nominee of killing Mary Jo Kopechne and people would just shrug and say, 'That's our Teddy'!" World War IV reading At the Daily Standard, Paul Mirengoff explores whether President George W. Bush is a neocon. (Heck, he's not even Jewish! Sorry, that joke never gets old.) Mirengoff reacts to Charles Krauthammer's Commentary article The Neo-Conservative Convergence and concludes: "Krauthammer is correct in viewing Bush administration foreign policy as the product of a convergence of neoconservatives and mainstream pragmatic conservatives. Both neoconservatives and their enemies have an incentive to call this convergence neoconservative. In the latter case, the motive is demonization. Thus, by agreement, our current foreign policy, crafted by traditional conservatives, will continue to be deemed distinctively neoconservative. But much will be lost in that short-hand translation." I don't care how Bush got to the conclusion that it was necessary to liberate Iraq, I'm just glad that he did it. Let It Bleed links to "Debunking 8 Anti-War Myths About the Conflice in Iraq" by John Hawkins at Right Wing News. Specifically Hawkins debunks these eight arguments: 1. George Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 2. A study released in March of 2003 by a British medical journal, the Lancet, showed that 100,000 civilians had been killed as a result of the US invasion. 3. The Bush Administration claimed Iraq was responsible for 9/11. 4. The war in Iraq was actually planned by people like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz back in 1998 at a think tank called the Project for the New American Century. 5. The war on terror has nothing to do with Iraq. 6. Saddam Hussein had no ties to terrorism. 7. Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al-Qaeda. 8. The Downing Street Memo proves Bush lied to the American people about the war. Brian Brivati, professor of contemporary history at Kingston University, writes in The Guardian that the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq has made the world safer by 1) breaking up the command centre of al-Qaeda (Afghanistand) and 2) demonstrating to state-sponsors of terror that there is a cost to be paid for their policies (Iraq). The first half is worth reading; the second half speaks directly to his fellow liberals, using their language and concepts. WorldNetDaily reports that former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't think Iran has received the message that Brivati claims the liberation of Iraq has telegraphed to the region, namely that state-sponsorship of terrorism has too high a price. Netanyahu says that Tehran is dangerous, is committed to acquiring nuclear weapons and may provide a nuclear umbrella for the terror groups it supports. Daniel Pipes notes that Britain has its eyes closed when confronting the problem of militant Islam within its borders: "The point that most of all interested me, however, in reading Young Muslims and Extremism is where it draws on MI5 information to make this astonishing statement: 'Intelligence indicates that the number of British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity, whether at home or abroad or supporting such activity, is extremely small and estimated at less than 1% (pdf 2, p. 9).' If one accepts the report's estimate (pdf 2, p. 5) that the Muslim population of Great Britain numbers 1.6 million, then up to 16,000 'British Muslims actively engaged in terrorist activity.' 'Extremely small?' Excuse me, but that number strikes me as an extremely large." The London Times has a story and links to the study (Young Muslims and Extremism) that Pipes mentions. Anthony Browne reports in the London Times that Mohammed Bouyeri, the 27-year-old Dutch Mulsim "accused of killing Theo van Gogh, the Dutch film-maker, limped into Amsterdam’s high-security court yesterday with a Koran under his arm and insisted on his right not to be defended because he does not recognise the authority of the court." Arthur Chrenkoff has a month's worth of good news from Afghanistan. Quotidian "The outsider's view of Africans has always been in some way distorted. A generation ago we saw them as enormous savage tribesmen, throwing spears and maybe once in a while dancing for the newsreels. Today we hear very little of them that is not political, and it would be easy to gather that almost everybody in Africa is obsessed with problems of independence, neo-colonialism, one-party government etc. But of course, Africans worry about much the same things anyone else worries about -- how to make a living, how to love and be loved, how to educate children." -- Robert Fulford, from a 1964 Toronto Star column reprinted in Crisis at the Victory Burlesk: Culture, Politics and Other Diversions Nordlinger does Albania Jay Nordlinger files his Impromptus column from Albania with various observations and anecdotes about the formerly communist, majority Muslim, staunchly pro-American eastern European nation. Lots of tidbits (which is typical) about the same general topic (which is unusual) including this one: "Tirana and environs are full of ugly, Soviet-style buildings — this is, after all, a country only 15 years from deepest Communism. But the Albanians are doing something wonderful: They are painting the buildings in interesting colors, especially pastels. In some places, you get a taste of South Florida, or the Caribbean. To put a little soulfulness on a drab, Communist building: That is a supremely beautiful idea. Such paint needs to be applied politically and spiritually, too." Nordlinger explains the country's pro-Americanism: "And Albania is famously — some might say notoriously — pro-American. How it would embarrass our Left (and does)! When Secretary of State Baker visited the country, as it was rising from the grave, they rushed and kissed his car. Other Americans have had only slightly less rhapsodic receptions. After World War I, President Wilson demanded Albanian independence; many people have never forgotten it. Then, too, there was the American war against Milosevic, which saved so many Albanian lives — lives of the Kosovar Albanians." Live8 defined By Lorne Gunter at As I Please: "the global rock concert for higher taxes that occurred in nine locations last weekend." Slurpee or Mozart Easy. I'm with Warren Bell. In fact, I'm having a refreshing Hulk cup size Coca Cola slurpee right now. (The Hulk cup was a promotional cup a few years ago that is more than twice as large as the largest regular cup.) Happy birthday Slurpee, a product that nets 7-11 $170 million in the U.S. alone -- roughly equal to how much the Tuns family has sucked back over the years. Best comment on Judith Miller Or, more accurately, those who hold her up as a hero above questioning, from Oxblog's Josh Chafetz: "... what strikes me as being perversely remote from the concerns of the real world is the oceans of ink being spilled over the jailing of one reporter for refusing to follow the law that is applicable to everyone else." The cause of this observation was New York Times editor Bill Keller saying that Miller is not going to debate contrarian Los Angeles Times editorial page editor Michael Kinsley over Miller's arrest and subsequent jailing. Loving Africa at arms length On January 31, the BBC reported that Bob Geldolf admitted he hated visiting Africa: "[It] bores me profoundly." Geldolf also says that he prefers to do music over politics but he isn't "successful enough." Nothing like an international PR gimmick like Live8 to help the career. Or ego. (Via Jim Robbins in The Corner) Sunday, July 10, 2005
Quotidian "I could never possibly have any serious contact with philosophy because I have not the memory." -- Wallace Stevens, The Letters of Wallace Stevens Great line Jeffrey Bell and Frank Cannon write in this week's Weekly Standard about how President George W. Bush will be judged on the justices he appoints to the Supreme Court. Bell and Cannon note the effect that two justices appointed by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, Harry Blackmun and Anthony Kennedy, two liberals who confirmed and raised "the morale of the Court in its drive to power." Very nicely put. New life for EU charter After all the hand-wringing that the European constitution, if not Europe itself, was dead, there is a renewed sense of life for the document now that the second smallest country in the European Union endorsed it in a referendum. (See also the Independent story here.) I told you it was premature to right off this dreadful constitution. There are rumblings (I recently read in the dead tree version of The Economist) that EUrocrats will try to implement the constitution when 20 of the 25 countries have ratified it; apparently, there is a clause in the document that allows this despite its statement that it requires the unanimous consent of all current EU members before taking effect. Steyn on 7/7 The money 'graphs from Mark Steyn's Chicago Sun-Times column: "The choice for Britons now is whether they wish to be Australians post-Bali or Spaniards post-Madrid. That shouldn't be a tough call. But it's easy to stand before a news camera and sonorously declare that "the British people will never surrender to terrorism.'' In reality, unless it's clear a threat is primal, most democratic peoples and their political leaders prefer to regard bad news as a peripheral nuisance which can be negotiated away to the fringe of their concerns. That's what Britain thought in the 1930s -- back when Hitler was slavering over Czechoslovakia, and Neville Chamberlain dismissed it as "a faraway country of which we know little." Today, the faraway country of which the British know little is Britain itself. Traditional terrorists -- the IRA, the Basque separatists -- operate close to home. Islamism projects itself long-range to any point of the planet with an ease most G-8 militaries can't manage. Small cells operate in the nooks and crannies of a free society while the political class seems all but unaware of their existence." Squidward's politics There has been a mini-debate over in The Corner about children's television characters and their politics. (I think it began when John Podhoretz said that his daughter was hoping that Barney would become the next Supreme Court justice.) A reader emailed The Derb with the final word on why Squidward, a character from Spongebob Squarepants (William Kristol's favourite kid's cartoon -- I don't know how I know this but I do) is not a conservative: "I maintain Squidward, if he has any political bearing at all, is not a conservative. He may seems to have a conservative demeanor, and is male, but that's where it ends. Squidward is a surface intellectual who looks down on the masses. He plays the clarinet (or some other instrument - my band teacher wife would be so disappointed in me), paints and sculpts, and he dreams of being a successful artist. All this screams to me 'Hollywood liberal.' Other facts which strongly hint at a left leaning voting record: He unionized labor at the Krusty Krab. He works in an unskilled, low paying job. He is a unmarried. Squidward identifies himself as a squid, but is clearly an octopus (8 limbs, bulbous head, bottom dweller). He clearly suffers from Species Identity Confusion (I wonder what bathroom he uses). Octopi are members of the mollusk family. Thus Squidward has no internal skeleton, and thus no backbone." Bill Cosby is the Dan Quayle of the 2000s Clayton Cramer says that "The NAACP is holding its national convention shortly in Milwaukee -- and it sounds like Bill Cosby's campaign of speaking truth to dysfunctionality is beginning to have an impact" because the NAACP is finally recognizing the "destructive effects of violent crime and declining morals" on the black population. The Teuter's story about the NAACP confab in Milwaukee can be read here. Weekend list II Here's how I filled out my first National League All Star Game ballot. Earlier today, I did the same for the American League. Catcher - Mike Piazza, New York Mets (San Deigo Padres' backstop Ramon Hernandez is having a slightly better season (281 BA and 7 dingers and a slight edge in defensive abilities vs. Piazza's 260 BA and 9 HRs and the best defense he's played in three or four years) but Piazza is one of the all-time best hitting catchers; this will be one of his last seasons and I'd rather watch a fading star (but still a star) get one last shot than tomorrow's man get the nod too soon.) 1B - Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (338, 22 homers, 69 rbis, 70 runs. I know that Chicago Cubs first basemen Derreck Lee is gunning for the triple crown (375, 26 HRs, 68 rbis) but Lee is hitting 100 points above his career average whereas Pujols in has been one of the two or three best players in baseball for each of the past couple seasons.) 2B - Jeff Kent, Los Angeles Dodgers (All Star numbers: 303, 15 dingers, 60 ribbies.) SS - David Eckstein, St. Louis Cardinals (Decent enough numbers including a 288 average, he benefits from the fact that Nomar Garciaparra has been limited to 14 games and that Gold Glove-quality Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Cesar Izturis has seen his average drop 50 points in the past four weeks. All that and the fact that he wears his socks up high like the old-timers.) 3B - Scott Rolen, St. Louis Cardinals (256 BA, 5 homers in an injury-plagued year. David Wright of the New York Mets is making a pretty good case for his inclusion in the game (282, 11 homers) Perhaps next year.) RF - Bobby Abreu, Philadelphia Phillies (He's the most under-rated player in baseball despite a career 306 average. This year he's producing great numbers again: 308 BA, 18 homers, 58 ribs.) CF - Jim Edmonds, St. Louis Cardinals (272 BA, 16 homers and 51 ribbies. Carlos Beltran certainly has been worth the investment the New York Mets made in him. And I just can't cast ballots for Atlanta Braves even when they are as good as Andruw Jones: 274 BA, 27 HRs, 67 rbis.) LF - Jason Bay, Pittsburg Pirates (I didn't think I'd ever punch out the chad on my ballot for a Pirate but I have. Bay is improving on his Rookie of the Year numbers from last season and will surely be an fixture in All Star games in the future -- and not just because Major League Baseball has a rule about every team getting at least one representative. He deserves this spot: 302 average, 16 homers, 44 rbis.) Weekend list How I filled out my American League ballot for the Major League Baseball All Star Game. Catcher - Jorge Posada, New York Yankees (263 BA, 10 homers, good defense - he has a worse average and is not as good a defensive players as Detroit Tigers' backstop Ivan Rodriquez but has more power and speed on the bases.) 1B - Tino Martinez, New York Yankees (He's really cooled off since a great few weeks in May when he was second to team-mate A-Rod for the homerun lead. Sure he has the same number of homeruns now as he did a month ago but that's when I filled out my first ballot. Texas Rangers first basemen Mark Teixeira is having a MVP-type season (290, 24 homers 71 ribbies), but I'll go with the veteran. A team filled with seven guys who can put it over the fence isn't that fun to watch.) 2B - Alfonso Soriano, Texas Rangers (275, 21 homers, 56 ribbies, 60 runs, 10 stolen bases. He's exciting to watch, even when he making defensive mistakes or swinging wildly at pitches far outside the strike zone. Brian Roberts of the Baltimore Orioles is having a better season (350, 15 homers, 18 stolen bases) but realistically fans fill out their ballots with more than the current season in mind.) SS - Derek Jeter, New York Yankees (309 BA, 11 homers, 68 runs, 10 stolen bases, exciting defensive player. Sure, I admit that Baltimore Orioles Miguel Tejada is probably the best all-around player in the game (330, 19 HRs, 62 ribbies, 55 runs) but Jeter is defensibly one of the best three shortstops of the past decade and it is my all-star ballot.) 3B - Alex Rodriquez, New York Yankees (320, 23 homers, 72 rbis. He's a legitimate triple crown threat.) RF - Gary Sheffield, New York Yankees (This is the toughest choice for baseball fans -- Sheffield, Vladimir Gurrerro of the Los Angeles Angels and Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners. Shef is having a good season with 16 homeruns and an average hovering around 300.) CF - Carl Crawford, Tampa Bay Devil Rays (284 average and 29 stolen bases, good defense, he's the perfect centrefielder and normally he plays the position even though Tampa is, for some reason, playing him in left. I'd like to pick Yankees' centerfielder Bernie Williams but he's missing pop ups that minor leaguers would catch.) LF - Hideki Matsui, New York Yankees (He's now batting 315 (raising his average more than 60 points since the end of May) and is among the league leaders in rbis.) DH - Jason Giambi, New York Yankees (He's had an excellent June, with several mutliple homerun games and raising his average 80 points to 276 since late May. All without the benefit of performance-enhancing drugs. I know I should protest the designated hitter rule by not punching this portion of the ballot but my support for the Yankees is always greater than fighting the injustice of having players only playing half the game.) Root causes Philosopher Roger Scruton wrote in the London Times yesterday that terrorists employ their despicable methods because they resent the success of the West, not because they are victims of some sort. Here's the money 'graph: "Of course hatred has other causes besides resentment. Someone who has suffered an injustice may very well hate the person who committed it. However, such hatred is precisely targeted, and cannot be satisfied by attacking some innocent substitute. Hatred born of resentment is not like that. It is a passion bound up with the very identity of the one who feels it, and rejoices in damaging others purely by virtue of their membership of the targeted group. Resentment will always prefer indiscriminate mass murder to a carefully targeted punishment. Indeed, the more innocent the victim, the more satisfying the act." J-Pod's great idea In The Corner, John Podhoretz says the heck with electing judges: "... why don't we elect college professors? If there's one thing that drives me absolutely bananas, it's when people seriously advocate public-policy solutions that amount to a wholesale revision of the American political system -- as though that were possible, doable, likely or desirable." My review of Harper bio My review of William Johnson's Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada ran in today's Halifax Herald. (I add a few comments about the book at The Shotgun.) I reproduce it in its entirety below. Biography reveals Harper Canadians don't know By PAUL TUNS It was inevitable that Stephen Harper would sooner or later be the subject of a biography. As Harper begins a summer of letting Canadians get to know him a little better, Douglas Gibson Books - an imprint of McClelland and Stewart - has released a 407-page biography of the man who leads the Conservative Party and who could, one day, lead the country. William Johnson, a former Globe and Mail columnist and former president of Alliance Quebec - an Ottawa-funded federalist lobby group - has written a surprisingly objective, even sympathetic, biography of Harper. Johnson admits to emphasizing Harper's strengths because, as he says, "unlike his weaknesses, they have not been generally recognized." The list of weaknesses are well known: he's too cerebral, partisan, dull and aloof for politics. Johnson is to be applauded for highlighting the Stephen Harper whom Canadians do not know. He is smart, principled and consistent. He is like Pierre Trudeau, says Johnson, because he has "a clear sense of the non-negotiable underlying conditions for a civil society." Like Trudeau he is a "conviction politician," because he has a vision of how Canada should work, although Harper supports a starkly anti-Trudeauvian agenda of limited and smaller government. Most of Johnson's biography is the story of Harper's views on the various issues he and Canada faced during his steady rise in conservative politics, and how he gave those ideas life in party politics and national debates. We learn about Harper's views on national unity as manifested in the formulation of the Reform Party's response to the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords and the threat of Quebec separation surrounding the 1995 Quebec referendum. Harper is also a central figure in the story of Canada's divided and finally reunited right. He played a pivotal role in the creation of the Reform Party, pushing it to the right by urging Preston Manning to take principled conservative positions rather than mildly centre-right populist ones, especially on national unity, bilingualism and economics. He would leave Parliament in 1997 and head up the National Citizens Coalition, a conservative lobby group. The following year, after Jean Charest left Ottawa to become the leader of the Quebec Liberals, conservative Tories courted Harper to join the Progressive Conservative leadership race but the former Reform MP did not think it was his time. In 2001, he could no longer resist the call of elected politics and challenged Stockwell Day for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance, which he won the next spring. Johnson reports that one Harper advisor said that if Harper hadn't run, "the Alliance might have simply ceased to exist." Johnson outlines in detail Harper's leadership bid and his two years leading the party. Ironically, it was because of Harper that the party ceased to exist. In 2004, he began manoeuvring so that the Progressive Conservative and Canadian Alliance parties could provide a united front against the Liberals. Johnson provides a play-by-play of the machinations that began shortly after Peter MacKay won the leadership through to the unification of the party and subsequent leadership race. The remainder of the book examines Harper's role and reaction to the political realignment the unification of the centre-right parties initiated. At times, Johnson's book is less a biography of Stephen Harper than a political history of Canada. That is not really a flaw but rather a hazard of political biography. If Johnson's book suffers a serious flaw, it is his focus on Quebec and obsession with the national unity question. Certainly a man who once led a federalist lobby group within Quebec is prone to excessive consideration of the influence that province has on federal politics. But viewing Harper almost solely through the prism of Quebec warps Johnson's image of the Conservative leader. It leaves the impression that Harper was obsessed with the Quebec issue when, in fact, it is the author who is. While the mainstream media says that the Conservative Party's perceived extreme social conservatism turns off "moderate" urban and Ontario voters, Johnson views the party's opposition to same-sex marriage as a hindrance in secular, socially liberal Quebec without any consideration of how the issue plays out elsewhere in the country. The full title of this biography is Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada. And in Johnson's eyes, that future depends on settling the unity question. He sees that the best hope for Canada's future is a return to the view once espoused by Harper - a view that he was once the most eloquent spokesman for: the historical constitutional order of Canada, which includes respecting the division of federal and provincial jurisdictions. It is not clear whether Harper still supports such an order as he seems to have endorsed the creeping asymmetrical federalism represented by a number of Paul Martin's initiatives. Johnson's strongest criticism of Harper is reserved for his tacit endorsement of asymmetrical federalism. Johnson does not suggest which Harper - the ordered federalist or the asymmetrical federalist - will emerge, whether he can win the next election and even if it will make all that much of a difference. William Johnson has written a thorough biography of Harper that goes beyond the shorthand caricature that passes for journalistic insight of this important political figure. But when Johnson reaches beyond the confines of biography, he fails to attain his ambitious goal of seeing where Canada is headed. Regardless, this is an important book for political junkies and others who are trying to understand recent Canadian political history. Cadman, RIP To put aside politics for a moment, a story that could have huge political fallout. Independent Canadian MP -- one of four in Parliament but the only one elected as an independent by voters last fall -- Chuck Cadman has passed away. The 57-year-old MP came to politics to fight for a just youth criminal justice system but will likely be remembered for his budget vote in May that allowed the Liberals to fight another day. By all accounts a decent fellow and hard-working MP. Political news Robert Novak has two interesting pieces of political news in his most recent column. First, a person close to Senator John McCain says the likelihood of the Arizona Republican running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008 has risen from 50% to 70%. Senator Allen? Governor Bush? Anyone but McCain, Powell, Guiliani and assorted other "moderates." Second, consider the socialism of Rep. Harold Ford, an up-and-coming Kentucky Democrat in his words of support for the Kelo decision: "We have a lot of properties in my city [Memphis] ... that are crying out for development ... I've always been one to believe that individual rights is a big thing ... [but] there is some real value to this decision." Family Guy sneak preview A teaser for Sunday's show for the best program on televsion can be found here. Saturday, July 09, 2005
Fighting Terror As The Anchoress implies in this fantasitc post, we've put off fighting terror for too long. Anchoress begins with a Winston Churchill quote from May 1940 before examining the times the West did not respond to terrorist attacks: "We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind, We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask: what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory - victory - at all costs, victory, in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival." The Anchoress gives a quick run down the path of no resistance: "Perhaps if, in the 1970’s, (when Islamofascists took and held hostages for 444 days) Churchill’s policy had become our policy, 3000 Americans would not have been killed on 9/11, Bali would not have exploded, Spain would not have capitulated and England would not today be in mourning. Perhaps if, in the 1980’s, (when Islamofascists had bombed soldiers barracks in Lebanon and began calling for holy war) Churchill’s policy had become our policy, 3000 Americans would not have been killed on 9/11, Bali would not have exploded, Spain would not have capitulated and England would not today be in mourning. Perhaps if, in the 1990’s, (when Islamofascists had bombed the WTC, then the Khobar Towers, then the US Embassies in Nairobi, then the USS Cole - among other worldwide bombings) Churchill’s policy had become our policy, 3000 Americans would not have been killed on 9/11, Bali would not have exploded, Spain would not have capitulated and England would not today be in mourning." So terrorism is nothing new (that is, it didn't begin with the presidency of George W. Bush or the Iraq war) and the Anchoress counters Bush administration critics who believe that with quotes from Christopher Hitchens and Amir Taheri before concluding: "Terrorism did not begin with and will not end with the presidency of George W. Bush…it may not end in our lifetime. But our enemies would as soon kill us as look at us and if they could slaughter 38,000 instead of 38, they would do so with relish. An enemy that looks only to kill the infidel or die trying is an enemy that will only be defeated if they are convinced that they will never win." Put that way, is is obvious there is no choice but to fight the war on Islamofascist terror. And to win. Supreme speculation This AP story on the retirement watch of Chief Justice William Rehnquist (and others) has this particularly troubling sentence: "Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 85 and healthy, may be going, the speculation went. Stevens is the court's liberal leader and would seem an unlikely prospect with a Republican in the White House and GOP-controlled Senate." I have two thoughts. 1) Why is there no criticism of Stevens for making what appears to be a political decision. If the speculation was about Justice Clarence Thomas or Rehnquist the media would say he's politicizing the court. 2) If Stevens is waiting until after the next presidential election (and therefore the earliest a Democrat could appoint him), Stevens will be 89 years old. Perhaps Bruce Bartlett's idea of term limits for Supreme Court justices is a good idea. Friday, July 08, 2005
Quotidian "Here richly, with ridiculous display, The Politician's corpse was laid away. While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged." -- Hilaire Belloc, "Epitath on the Politician Himself" If Americans are so stupid ... Political Staples looks at two important indicators of national intelligence (innovation and productivity) to find that Canada trails the United States badly in both. Staples notes: "One commonly used measure of innovation is Patents Per Capita. Canadians produce 31 patents per million people. The United States produces 289. Ouch. Remember, this is per capita. Apples to apples the United States produces 10 times as many patents. ... For the record this is how we stack up against some other countries. Japan: 994 Korea: 779 United States: 289 Sweden: 271 France: 205 Russia: 131 Australia: 103 United Kingdom: 82 New Zealand: 75 Canada: 31 Italy: 13" And productivity? "Here I will look at GDP/capita. In this measure we stack up better against the rest of the world. However, those "stupid Americans" absolutely dominate this statistic. United States: 40,100 Canada: 31,500 Australia: 30,700 United Kingdom: 29,600 Japan: 29,400 France: 28,700 Germany: 28,700 Sweden: 28,400 Italy: 27,700 New Zealand: 23,200 Korea: 19,200 Russia: 9,800" Staples has more that is worth reading. My bet is that the response of most Canadians would be: "Yeah, but they don't have public healthcare." Time for another Virginian Washington Post columnist George F. Will reports from New Hampshire on the presidential ambitions of Virginia Senator George V. Allen (R), who is a wonderful combination of libertarian (taxes) and conservative (social issues). If Allen, a first-term senator and former governor, wins the nomination (a bit of a long-shot at the moment, I think) and the presidency, he will be the first Virginian since John Tyler (in 1840) to do so. Will's advice to Allen: don't seek re-election and pursue the GOP nomination full-time. Belton on 7/7 Oxblog's Patrick Belton's reaction to the terrorist attacks in London: "I'm quite struck by the strategic cynicism of attacking public transportation, and then after an interval, the crowded bus lines once commuters had been diverted to them. But several friends I spoke with this morning who have lived in Israel say that this pattern - an initial attack, followed by a staggered attack on emergency services once they'd arrived - isn't at all uncommon. (My friends living abroad are kindly texting to see if i have all of my relevant body parts, attached in the appropriate fashion.) I find that such an attack on commuting civilians completely unengaged with the machinery of government, war, or administration is striking me as stomach-turning and revolting in a way I could not have previously imagined." Africans and Live8, or Aid is like beer Reading Aidan Hartley's article in The Spectator I realize how much the Live8 publicity gimmick concerts were a largely western phenomenon (and how yesterday and frivilous Live8 seems in light of yesterday's terrorist attacks). Hartley begins his article, "Hardly anybody bothers to ask ordinary poor Africans what they think about the G8 summit, so I did." Hartley reports his findings: From outside Nairobi’s game park: A petrol attendant: "Aid won’t help us ... Our leaders will steal it." Hartley: "How do you know that?" Petrol attendant: "I'm an African, I know." Hartley: "What do you think of Bob Geldof?" Attendant: "I love Bob Marley very much!" Several respondents give a blank stare when asked about Bono. Hartley asks a businessman at the Nameless Pub. Hartley: "Surely it's all about getting business in Africa started, not aid." Businessman: "Yes, but it’s not easy to do business in Kenya unless you know somebody in a high office." What will debt relief do to lessen such corruption? A drunk at the Rib Village Roast Meat and Beer Point (I say any place that has an establishment with that name can't be in that bad shape) who goes by the name Walia replied to Hartley's inquiries: "Aid? It is a big killer!" Walisa was informed that that he was not being asked about AIDS and replied: "Oh, I thought you meant HIV." Wasila turns to an analogy: "I work as a driver, so that I can buy bread for my family. We drink in bars because we cannot afford bread. I spend what money I have here so that when I go home I am totally drunk and nobody will ask me for money, because they know I have none. The way aid works is like this beer. The leaders will give me one and I will be happy. Tomorrow the beer is gone and nothing will go to my children at school. In 60 years I’ve never seen aid. I have no land, no assets. The big boys have put it in their pockets." What terrorists do Terrorists kill innocents and attempt to weaken the resolve of western societies by frightening them and they do it often and with alarming indiscriminate attacks. According to the Terrorism Knowledge Base, there have been 126 terrorist incidents in London since the 1960s and 309 attacks in Paris over the past 35 years. (Via James S. Robbins) Also, AFP reports that since the beginning of the year, 800 Thais have lost their lives and 1200 have been injured to a combination of terrorist and criminal violence. Norman Geras lists 18 ways terrorists have terrorized the innocent: 1. They attack Red Cross personnel. 2. They murder people working for the UN. 3. They kidnap and kill care workers. 4. They bomb holiday-makers, in nightclubs. 5. They blow up people travelling on trains - civilians. 6. They target people on buses - civilians. 7. They take civilian hostages. 8. They decapitate them. 9. They murder trade unionists. 10. They kidnap diplomats. 11. They kill people for being... barbers. 12. They fly aircraft full of civilians into skyscrapers where people are at work. 13. They take schoolchildren hostage and murder them. 14. They bomb synagogues. 15. They kill people shopping in a market. 16. They kill people queuing at a medical clinic. 17. They murder children in Baghdad. 18. They murder people on their way to work in London. al-Qaeda The Economist's lead editorial is on the London terrorist attacks and includes this paragraph about al-Qaeda which less an operational network of terrorists which a central command than a set of ideologically similar franchises seeking to destroy the West: "The apparent leaders of that un-cohesive effort, those who are thought to be the central command of al-Qaeda, have anyway been in hiding and retreat. There is no way of knowing for sure, but it seems plausible given the number of arrests and killings of people said to be senior al-Qaeda officers—particularly in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East—that the group now has much less of an infrastructure than it did before September 11th and a central leadership that is much less commanding." This is not to say that al-Qaeda is not a threat -- it was proven yesterday that it is. But it is to say that despite the horrible event yesterday the West is winning. Not all cultures are created equal Mark Steyn writes in this week's Spectator -- before the 7/7 attacks -- about the challenge the West faces: "The post-9/11 world is not primarily a war between civilisations — the West vs Islam — but a war within one civilisation: ours. It’s a long existential struggle between those who believe that Western values — or, to be more precise, the values of the English-speaking world — are one of the great blessings of this world and those ‘counter-tribalists’ (in John O’Sullivan’s phrase) who believe those values are the source of most of the world’s ills. The latter are a relatively small group but their numbers are bolstered by legions so immersed in the sappy therapeutic culture of the age that they’ve been persuaded that the best way to ‘celebrate diversity’ is to abase oneself before moral relativism and non-judgmentalism. The Islamists are merely the lucky beneficiaries of this syndrome. It’s hard to fight a war in a culture that recoils from the very concept of an opposing side: there are no enemies, just friends whose grievances we haven’t yet accommodated." A foreign policy type sent me an email that included this line: "Terrorism is the only strong weapon in the arsenal of weak men. We must kill these men." The West insists on believing that terrorism is the weapon of last resort of desperate men and that we must accommodate these men. It is decadence to believe this and such thinking imperils our ability to fight World War IV and kill the terrorist murderers. Sachs at the G8 Jeffrey Sachs is blogging at the G8 for the Financial Times -- actually, it is more like a once-daily column -- and on Thursday he went out of his way to claim that Africa has not received that much aid over the past half-century. I'd much rather see him blog about this important point he makes: "In sum, aid will work when it is specific, measurable, time-bound, and subject to audits, monitoring, and evaluation. That is the true lesson of aid in Africa and other parts of the world." Well, he has one more day at Gleneagles to address these issues. My problem with Sachs is that while his book The End of Poverty outlines these specific programs, in his journalism (including the FT blog) he has stressed that the West hasn't done enough, attempted to induce Western guilt over the plight of Africa and criticized the critics of aid and debt relief for the developing world. Sachs would more effectively change people's minds about this issue if he highlighted how foreign aid could actually benefit the people it is intended to help and not the unaccountable and thuggish leaders of many African states. Feelings Gideon Strauss has a post on why neocalvinism makes him feel good and begins his piece thinking about feelings: "Probably my biggest intellectual temptation is stoicism, and one of my biggest complaints about the modern way of life is the popular emotivist idolatry of what makes us feel good - the turning of our own feelings, ranging from sexual gratification to philanthropic compassion with many others in between, into little fake gods." Telegraph on 7/7 The Daily Telegraph editorializes: "Through a combination of vigilance, tolerance of religious diversity and sheer grit, the rest of us must now show that cowardly attacks on soft targets will strengthen, rather than undermine, our belief in humane and democratic values. That applies as much to our projection of power overseas as it does on the streets of our cities." Nicely put. More on Gonzales Right Ho! says he has no problems with the possibility of Alberto Gonzales being named to the Supreme Court because Gonzales will be conservative enough. But I have trouble considering anyone who would answer the question, "Many of us feel that the Constitution does not speak to permissive abortion. Would you comment?" with "The Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is," to be not conservative at all. The Constitution is what it is, not what five justices say it is. Thursday, July 07, 2005
7/7 Really there is not much to add. I hope that these acts of war remind/awaken people of/to the reality that the West faces: Islamofascists who want to destroy us. Frank J. Gaffney Jr. expresses the same hope and outlines what must be done to get back on a "war footing": 1) The recognition of "the determination of our enemies to destroy as many of us as possible remains a threat to all Western democratic societies." 2) Recognizing "the nature of those Western societies — in particular, their openness, their civil liberties, and the freedom of movement they encourage — makes them particularly susceptible to such attacks, as well as the object of the enemy's malevolence." 3) Realizing that "infrastructure like public transportation are obvious targets for our foes. They are difficult to protect, have many exploitable vulnerabilities, and if attacked can almost guarantee sizeable casualties and extensive economic dislocation." 4) "[F]or the authorities to have any hope of contending with such threats, they are going to have to engage the public to a far greater extent than has been done to date. Vastly multiplying the eyes and ears alert to potential attacks — and to those involved in their planning or execution — is essential in free societies. 5) "[G]overnments, like their publics, must remain seized with and give priority to countering terrorists and their state-sponsors. While Tony Blair's stated determination to have the G-8 meeting remain focused on the priorities he had previously set — specifically, debt relief and other aid for Africa and initiatives meant to affect global warming — is understandable, the reality is that the focus on agenda items that are unrelated to waging and prevailing in this war is a distraction we cannot afford at the moment." 6) "[W]hether Islamists prove to have been responsible for today's attacks in London or not, concerted efforts are in order to counter and defeat their ideology. This requires not only military measures aimed at disrupting their operations and denying the safe-havens from which they are prepared and launched. In addition to denying the terrorists funding and material support, we must also engage in political warfare of the type that previously de-legitimized and helped undermine Soviet communism." 7) "[S]teps that will reward Islamofascists for their terrorism while weakening the West's ability to defend against them should be urgently reconsidered. The most imminent of these is the creation of a new state-sponsor of terror in the Palestinian territories — the inevitable result of Israel's planned surrender of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank under present, and foreseeable, circumstances." Gaffney says the West is at war and that the acts of war -- they are not crimes and are not merely terrorist attacks -- must end the complacency that too much of the West has fallen into over the past few years. On William F. Buckley Michael M. Uhlmann looks at William F. Buckley, the man who "founded a movement no less than a magazine," in the current Claremont Review of Books. Uhlmann notes: "There was, finally, a point of the utmost practical importance. Spurred by its publisher, William A. Rusher, National Review soon thrust itself into the struggle to define the future of the Republican Party. The logic here was simplicity itself: Speculation about public policy was interesting and necessary, but unless conservatives acquired the means to translate their ideas into practice, all would be for nought. The strategic imperative: Seize control of the Republican Party." I think that NR did not so much seize control of the Republican Party as it did of the agenda within the party, especially on foreign policy. Uhlmann examines this in some depth and finishes his essay with Buckley's run for mayor in New York City on the Conservative Party ticket and the legacy of that run. Great piece, well worth reading. Quotidian "It is only to vain men that all is vanity; and all is deception only to those who have never been sincere with themselves." -- Joseph Conrad, "Prince Roman" Supreme fight Over in The Corner K-Lo reports: "In the last half hour the new rumor that is keeping political geeks awake: Rehnquist and Stevens resign tomorrow." My take: I think this is a very bad thing for conservatives. The Bush administration and the GOP in the Senate will have to figh three nominations at once. That is, of course, if President George W. Bush fights for his nomineee -- over the past few years he has left every judicial nominee to fend for himself resulting in the destroyed reputations of several very good men. But most of all I'm concerned about the urge for Bush to "split the difference" by nominating a liberal, moderate and conservative. If such a scenario were to play out, my guess is that a Justice Alberto Gonzales would be the moderate. More sad military news I recently noted that the saddest news I've read about the Liberal government's neglect of our armed forces was that they had to rent commercial paint ball equipment to carry out a simulation exercise. A friend passes along the story of the Canadian army privatising certain weapons training and wonders: "The Army can't even train new recruits on standard weapons systems. Does this mean the Army doesn't know how to use its own weapons platforms? Is this because our Generals outnumber our platoon commanders? Or rather is it because the government deems it necessary to contract out inessential functions such as 'weapons-handling' but maintain the all important publicly-funded 'inter-regimental' gay marriage service?" Private charity performs The Hudson Institute's Carol Adelman has found that American private interests -- individuals, churches, charities and corporations -- give more than either the U.S. government or Europe. A press release on the study says: "While the United States gives the greatest absolute amount of ODA to developing countries, it is routinely criticized for being "stingy" because U.S. Government aid ranks last among donor nations as a percent of Gross National Income (GNI). U.S. official aid is .15 percent of GNI compared to Norway, the highest ranked donor, at .92 percent. What such criticism ignores, however, is that the measure, developed by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD), fails to take into account the primary way in which Americans help others abroad: through the private sector. "ODA [Official Development Assistance] is an outdated and inaccurate way of measuring a country's generosity," says Dr. Adelman, Director of the Center for Science in Public Policy, at the Hudson Institute. 'Americans prefer to give people to people assistance versus Europeans who give primarily government to government aid'." The British newspaper The Business reports on the study, stating: "Private American citizens donated almost 15 times more to the Third World than Europeans, research reveals this weekend ahead of the G8 summit. They also handed over far more aid than the US government, demonstrating that America is far more generous to Africa and poor countries than is claimed by the Make Poverty History and Live8 campaigns. US Church collections, philanthropic donations and company giving amounted to $22bn (£12bn, E18bn) a year, according to a study by the Hudson Institute think-tank, easily more than the total $16.2bn in overseas aid sent by the US government. American churches, synagogues and mosques alone gave $7.5bn in 2003 - a figure which exceeds the government totals for France ($7.2bn) and Britain ($6.3bn), according to OECD numbers for official development aid. These new findings on US aid blow a hole in UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's and Chancellor Gordon Brown's claims to moral superiority on aid..." This reminds me of a recent conversation between a liberal and conservative to which I was privy. The liberal accused the conservative of not caring about impoverished Africans because he opposed the Tony Blair debt relief plan and was skeptical of the benefits most types of aid actually provided. The conservative responded that far from not caring that he had given nearly $500 to help two African children through a charity that provides one year's worth of food, medicine and primary school education and a school uniform. The conservative asked if the liberal gave to any charity that benefits the poor in the developing world and the liberal answered no, he didn't because -- and this is a direct quote that I will never forget -- "that's the government's job." The liberal maintained that he cared more for Africa than the conservative because the solutions the liberal supported would help "the whole continent" whereas the conservative's individual charity would only help two children. The conservative was also accused of giving to charity to lessen his guilt for not doing more, namely supporting massive government aid and debt relief. The point that the liberal missed, the point of the Hudson Institute study, really, is that the aggregate of individual donations, big and small, are larger than that which government gives and, although the study doesn't get into this, is directly affecting the lives of the people who are most in need of aid. Gonzales should take himself off Bush's SCOTUS shortlist Terry Eastland argues at the Daily Standard that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should take his name out of consideration by the President as a possible successor to retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Eastland concludes his short piece thusly: "Gonzales is not only on the short list but is an adviser to the president on judicial nominees. Indeed, like attorney generals since the Lincoln presidency, Gonzales is the president's principal adviser in this area. Surely he knows how conservatives see him; and surely he knows that it does the president no political good to make a nomination to the High Court--especially if it is the only one Bush gets to make--that dispirits conservatives, who form his strongest base of support. Surely, too, Gonzales can check his own ambition in deference to the president he serves. The attorney general would be doing the president a huge favor if, as chief counselor on judicial selection, he advised Bush that he has many good candidates to choose among in naming O'Connor's successor, and that his own name should be taken off the list." Football news: Good news, bad news for Chelsea fans Liverpool defender Steven Gerrard has changed his mind and has decided not to leave the team. He had been rumoured to be heading to Chelsea in a Premier League transfer record 32 million-pound deal but decided he could not leave the team that he had won the Champions League Cup with just weeks ago. While Premier League champions Chelsea won't get the best defender in the league, it will get back Argentinian attacker Herman Crespo who was on loan to AC Milan. Carnival of the Capitalists Lots of good economic and business reading at Carnival the Capitalists including on Live8 and aiding Africa. Of special note is Gongol's dissection of Make Poverty History, as pure a piece of propaganda as there ever was. Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Globalization Institute needs your help The Globalization Institute's Alex Singleton makes a pitch for financial support. Here's the conclusion of his post: "We're busy increasing economic understanding of the important issues of our time, working with policy-makers across the political divide, explaining why international taxes and regulation are not such a great idea and explaining the economic policies that will make a more prosperous, wealthy and happy world. So if you value free markets, low taxes and open trade, dig out your credit card and make a donation to the Globalization Institute today..." They do great work and deserve your support. If you need convincing about the important work they do, read their latest report, More Aid, Less Growth, by the University of Regina's Dr. Tomi Ovaska, which finds that bad information was the basis for earlier claims that development aid led to economic growth in the developing world. Quotidian "They can be a major experience, a source of continuous internal growth. Once part of you, they work in and on and with you until you die." -- Clifton Fadiman, on books in The Lifetime Reading Plan Gods of the Copybook Headings quiz answers are up They can be found here. I had a perfect score until question 13 (although I had educated guesses on 9 and 13 and a complete guess on 20) and a final score of 17 out of 20. I got 13, 15 and 16 wrong. Samizdata reaction to London getting the Olympics The bloggers at Samizdata are, predictably, not pleased that London will be hosting the 2012 Olympic games. Most are worried that taxpayers are going to get hosed -- and are probably right. Johnathan Pearce has a free-market solution: "... to be more positive about all this, it is surprising that more has not been written about how the Games, and similar events typically paid for out of taxes, could not be made entirely reliant on the private sector. The Games will create a new set of facilities in East London, which hopefully can be used for decades. Great. Then let the expected future streams of revenues generated by said facilities be used as collateral for things like bonds to pay for the project. Asset-backed securities are an increasingly common source of funding in our capital markets. Even pop star David Bowie, demonstrating the sort of business savvy common in the pop world, has issued bonds using his record sales as collateral. Why not issue "Olympic Bonds" with 20 or 30-year maturities to pay for the Games? Pension funds, which are hungry for long-dated, reliable income, would jump at them. But of course the rub is that the backers of the Games may lack the confidence that the event will generate the kind of economic returns used in the sales pitch in the run up the vote on Wednesday, which is why there is a high chance that the taxpayer will have to fork out for the Games." Robert Clayton Dean simply offers his condolences to London. I can't print Michael Jennings' reaction. London Olympics My two-cents on London being named the host for the 2012 summer Olympics: First penny -- While I didn't want the problems the Olympics usually bring to their hosts (congestion, debt, etc...) to plague cities such as London and New York, congratulations to London for pulling it off. Second penny -- While I wanted Paris to be plagued by the problems the Olympics usually bring to their hosts, not winning the 2012 Olympics looks good on them. Imagine how insufferable the French in general and Parisians in particular would be if the IOC awarded them the games? The votes for each city per round (as reported by the Daily Telegraph): First round: London 22, Paris 21, Madrid 20, New York 19, Moscow 15 Second round: Madrid 31, London 27, Paris 25, New York 16 Third round: London 39, Paris 33, Madrid 31 Fourth round: London 54, Paris 50 The London Times says in its editorial that the 2012 games is "an enterprise that will be costly and also truly monumental," but he hard work has just begun. Indeed. Here's my 2012 Olympic prediction: it will cost nearly twice as much as expected (the official estimates do not include the cost of upgrading transportation services and other infrastructure improvements) and Londoners will complain that they can't get around their city. Private property rights will be trampled because, as the Times editorial noted, houses will be demolished and businesses relocated to accommodate the building of Olympic facilities. The games will be considered a success. But will they be worth the cost? Okay, that was more than two-cents worth. Here's a thought Charmaine Yoest notes this comment by Julian Biggs in a post on Powerline: "Time after time, the TV announcers [covering Live8] reminded us that things are 'even worse in Africa than they were before Live Aid 20 years ago!' Clearly, none of them considered this might tell us something about the efficacy of Live Aid and its use of cash to solve problems caused by massive political corruption." More troubles for Lula The Financial Times reports on Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's cabinet shuffle (health, telecommunications, and energy and mines), a political move necessitated by scandals plaguing the socialist's government. Brazilian political analyst Carlos Lopes said, "This reshuffle will not make much difference. The question is no longer what reforms this government can carry out but whether it can survive." LAT editorial notices Canada -- gets us wrong The Los Angeles Times editorializes that both Spain and Canada's House of Commons did the right thing last week in granting marriage rights to homosexual couples; this is not terribly surprising. What was odd, however, was this line: "In both nations, particularly in Roman Catholic Spain, religion plays an important part in citizens' lives." What Canada were they talking about? Furthermore, the editorial contradicts itself when it says that Spaniards, who just lines before were described as people for whom religion plays an important role, are indifferent to "church mandates regarding sexual behavior" and therefore ignored "Catholic leaders ... on the more divisive issue of gay marriage." Yes, religion must be real important to the Spanish if they feel free to ignore Church teaching. Typical Kofi The Financial Times reports that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged African leaders to speak out against their human-rights abusing colleagues such as Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. He did not say that it was the right thing to do but rather the prudent thing to do because the continent needed a boost in credibility: "What is important and what is lacking on the continent is [a willingness] to comment on wrong policies in a neighbouring country." Note that Annan did not say they should do anything about Mugabe and others like him, just speak out against them. And now for something completely different ... This might be a Florida thing but I consider Tulip Girl's tip of the day to be quite reasonable: "If you happen to have a black snake in your pool, and you want to make sure it's not a water moccasin, I recommend that you NOT do a google search and look at the pictures of the snakes from all the places pest removers find snakes in Florida homes. I'm going to have nightmares about snakes in bathrooms, behind dressers, in pizza boxes..." Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Add this to my summer reading list Bernard Goldberg has another book out: 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken Is # 37). The Seattle Times has a write-up about it because a local Congressman and Courtney Love make the list. Off the fence J. Kelly Nestruck has been back blogging for a while. It's fortunate that he is a talented writer because except for one kind thing he said about George W. Bush, he really isn't straddling the fence anymore. He has gone from being my favourite politically ambivalent blogger to my favourite lefty blogger. Quotidian "His appetite astounded the onlookers and frightened the doctors." -- Nancy Mitford on Louis XVI in The Sun King Japan's priorities AFP reports that Japan, by which I presume the article means the Japan Condom Association, is seeking ways of developing condoms that are more fun -- "thinner, thicker or glow in the dark" -- to increase condom use which is odd considering the nation is having problems maintaining its population as it is. Putin a threat to Russia The Guardian has a long article on the rise of Vladimir Putin and the consequences for Russian political and economic freedom. Here's a taste that demonstrates how he consolidates power which threatens the integrity of the free market while increasing his political power: "Since that October [2003], the charge sheet against the Putin administration has grown uglier: the media is now - with a few embattled exceptions in print and on the internet - entirely under state control; what little political opposition that now exists in parliament does so only with tacit Kremlin approval, reducing MPs to a rubber stamp for Kremlin legislation and Putin's genuine opponents to isolated dissidents. The Kremlin has also tightened its control over Russia's 11 time zones, cancelling elections for regional governors, who will now be appointed by the president. Putin himself has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the last century', prompting suggestions that the Soviet instincts of the life long KGB man have reasserted themselves. But the portrayal of the new Kremlin as a cold war throwback ignores its calculated embrace of the market. Putin envisages the state not as the great re-nationaliser, but the biggest shareholder in a newly privatised society. While the west has focused on human rights abuses in Chechnya and the roll back of democracy, Putin has been quietly building 'Kremlin Inc', a collection of strategic industries under state control, that he hopes will provide him with the power once delivered by the might of the Red Army." ASI joke of the day This past weekend the Adam Smith Institute posted this joke: "The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just a sort of tired feeling." Britain's EU logo is for the birds Britain has chosen as the logo for its six-month presidency of the EU a v-formation of swans. The logo is animated -- a first for the EU -- and will be displayed at official functions. According to the BBC, Kate Thomson of the Cabinet Office's European Secretariat, explained the significance of the swans: "Migrating birds fly in a V formation. This is highly efficient, because all the birds in the formation, except for the leader, are in the slipstream of another bird. Periodically the leading bird drops back and another bird moves up to take its place." That's deep and it only cost £30,000 to have Johnson Banks Design create this logo. Not an auspicious start for the British presidency of the EU. A little good news for the Tories CBC reported that in the absence of an election Canadians are voting with their wallets for the Conservatives. In the year ending June 30, the Tories have raised twice as much money as the Liberals. The figures are as follows: Conservatives $10.9 million Liberals $5.2 million New Democrats $5.19 million Bloc Québécois $897,000 The figure is a little misleading because the NDP totals include donations to their provincial wings. The CBC reports the Liberals "may have been hurt by the unfolding sponsorship scandal or by a failure to recruit enough grassroots donors." You think? Naivete indeed Winnipeg Sun columnist Lydia Lovric says the same-sex marriage law is tainted by the undemocratic way it was rammed through Parliament: "Forgive my naivete, but don't we pay our politicians to debate important issues? It is an affront to the entire parliamentary process to bar MPs from speaking on behalf of their constituents. I may support same-sex marriage, but I'm certainly not so self-important as to suggest that debating the issue is without merit. Canadians deserve to be heard. Paul Martin effectively silenced the many Canadians who oppose same-sex marriage. The subsequent 'victory' will always be marked with an asterisk." With all due respect to Ms. Lovric, that asterisk would apppear only if those writing the history textbooks weren't Liberal-loving academics. Monday, July 04, 2005
Not all development aid is equal Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mellaby reports on an IMF study that finds that most aid actually makes things worse: "But although the experts will debate the aid-and-growth evidence for some time, the central argument of the IMF authors is undeniably correct. Aid projects may do good, but they have unseen side effects that hurt. The development folk need to absorb this message. What are these unseen effects? As aid flows in, it pushes up a country's exchange rate and damages its exporters. Aid projects that hire local workers are bidding up skilled wages, again damaging the export firms that hire from the same labor pool. So an AIDS project or water project may deliver wonderful and visible results while also choking off the export growth that represents the surest route to development. Hence the fact that many statistical tests don't find that aid helps reduce poverty. It follows that you have to care a lot about whether aid is spent well. A failed aid project is not merely neutral for poverty reduction; it exacerbates the problem. Inconsistent donors who finance the construction of six hospitals but then don't follow up with the resources to make any of them function saddle poor countries with the worst of both worlds: bad health and bad growth rates. Next, you need to think about the kind of aid you favor. Aid that boosts exporters' productivity -- a road connecting an industrial city to a port -- may be a net plus for growth: The productivity gain outweighs the adverse currency appreciation and wage inflation. By contrast, aid that's spent on education takes time to boost industrial productivity. Too much of it spells short-term problems." So even if the West doubled foreign aid tomorrow it is foolish to believe that it will necessarily help the average African. The critical factor in helping is not how much but how. What we can do about Africa Gideon Strauss, who knows what he is talking about, has a list that involve a little more work than signing an online petition or watching a concert and feeling good about "the difference" you've made: 1. Support political change in Africa. 2. Buy African. 3. Pray for gospel-provoked cultural change in Africa. 4. Support African aid and development organizations, schools and colleges, and churches. 5. Spend time in Africa. Happy Independence Day The Declaration of Independence When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; For imposing taxes on us without our consent; For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences; For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies; For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every state of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance, to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton Quotidian "Honesty and fairness are so different. Isn't it a pity." -- E.M. Forster, letter to E.V. Thompson, Selected Letters of E.M. Forster Sunday, July 03, 2005
Latest evidence of Liberal neglect of our military This is the saddest thing I've ever read about Canada's armed forces: "Canadian soldiers testing their fighting skills in a rare urban exercise were forced to rent commercial paintball weapons because they couldn't get proper army gear, a newly disclosed document shows." More details avaiable in the CP story, here. GCH Canadian quiz I can't believe that only 1 of the 1000 people who took the Dominion Institute quiz on Canadian history got all 20 questions correct or that the average for the 1000 was a failing grade of 8 out of 20. I suspect, however, that figure would be worse for the more challenging Gods of the Copybook Headings quiz. You know that Democrats have been tempted to live out this satire Scrappleface's satire on liberal reaction to O'Connor's retirement announcement: "Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, today criticized President George Bush's as-yet-unnamed replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a 'brutal, Bible-thumping, right-wing ideologue who hates minorities, women and cocker spaniels.' 'He or she is clearly outside the mainstream of American values,' said Sen. Kennedy. 'President Bush has again ignored the Senate's 'advice and consent' role, forcing Democrats to filibuster this outrageous nominee'." Quotidian "If I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father's library." -- Jorge Luis Borges, "An Autobiographical Essay" Brits shrug at loss of liberty Writing about New Labour's ID card scheme in The Spectator, Peter Oborne wonders why Britons have lost any interest in defending their own liberty. Whatever Britons might be thinking, he knows what the New Labour bosses think: "David Blunkett, the last home secretary, favoured an ID system, though one searches the archive in vain for any compelling defence by him of the proposal. As is not so well known as it should be, Mr Blunkett decided it would be wise to back ID cards mainly because Mr Blair did; and Mr Blair — who said at a press conference this week that ID cards were an idea ‘whose time has come’ — was in favour because various of his unelected and rabidly authoritarian advisers had convinced him it had to be done. The idea was inherited by the new Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, who as a former student Marxist has no problems with illiberalism or repression, and who as a convert to New Labour will believe in anything that enables the chauffeur-driven limo to continue to arrive each morning." So Clarke, a Marxist, wants to keep his job and his limo. The British people, on the other hand, lose some liberty. Seems like a fair trade to me. I've talked to dozens of Canadians who have said there is nothing to fear from some increased form of security/ID card -- protect the integrity of Canada's social programs by ensuring that only Canadian citizens access them (how very Canadian -- more government to protect big government) and increased security in the Age of Terror. It reminds me of Ben Franklin (to paraphrase: those who are willing to give up a little liberty for a little security will end up with less of both -- and I would add deserve neither). Anyway, Oborne notes that Brits support the ID system and then outlines in a nutshell why they are wrong: "Opinion polls show great support for cards, support that declines only when people are told they might have to pay handsomely for the privilege of having them. Given most people are not criminals, terrorists or even benefit fraudsters, it is hardly surprising that they superficially see no problem with being asked to prove who they are. Perhaps Mr Blair has been more successful than we realise in creating such a siege mentality among our people that they now have a clear conception of a common enemy, and want additional weapons (such as ID cards) to use against that enemy. What the public does not seem yet to have grasped is that (a) ID cards will not make the blindest bit of difference to security (b) they will allow the state to create the apparatus of quite unpalatable and unnecessary control over individuals and (c) a demonstrably unreliable state (Child Support Agency, tax credits qv) will hold all sorts of intimate information about us, with no end to the improper uses to which it might be put." (Note: the byline says Peter Oborne but the tagline says Simon Heffer.) O'Connor's replacement and abortion Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor retires from the Court the same weekend that NOW holds its annual convention. The Chicago Sun-Times reports: "Chanting ''Not the church, not the state; women must choose their fate,'' hundreds of members of the National Organization for Women rallied for abortion rights Saturday as President Bush prepares to select a new U.S. Supreme Court justice." The media is going to make this nomination primarily about abortion rights even though Justice O'Connor was the swing vote on a variety of issues. Kim Gandy, NOW's president -- can we call her a presidentess -- said that her organization would rather have a pro-abortion man appointed O'Connor's replacement on the bench than "an antiwomen extremist who was born female." I like that "was born female." It appears that NOW's position is that women lose their femaleness if they do not toe NOW's line on abortion. That's the only way to read her comment, isn't it? French role in World War IV Interesting article in the Washington Post about Alliance Base, the co-operative effort of the French and American intelligence agencies to track terrorists. The operation illustrates why the idea that France is less an ally than a competitor to the United States is murkier than advocates of such a position suggest. The Post reports that, "John E. McLaughlin, the former acting CIA director who retired recently after a 32-year career, described the relationship between the CIA and its French counterparts as 'one of the best in the world. What they are willing to contribute is extraordinarily valuable'." Anyway, this joint project is definitely worth reading about. Perhaps the last word on Live8 But probably not. I like the lack of deference the British press displays toward the Live8 project. Consider this column by Richard Woods in the London Times: "Ten vast concerts on four continents, powered by enough electricity to light an Ethiopian village for years, blared out a message to the world’s leaders: do something for Africa’s huddled masses or we’ll deafen you. Were they listening? Not everyone was at first: when Coldplay followed U2 in opening the show in Hyde Park, a young blonde could be seen carrying a baby. It was Gwyneth Paltrow, Hollywood wife of Coldplay’s singer Chris Martin, with their child Apple sporting large pink ear-defenders. For a while the rest of the crowd also looked uncertain, a refugee mass starved of alcohol who had come in search of spiritual sustenance and free superstars. It was a confusing mix and a tinge of cynicism hung in the air. This was a generation that had moved on from the simplicities of Live Aid where all that was required was to wave your arms in the air and throw money at the starving. In Hyde Park as Sir Elton John, the 58-year-old rocker, hammered into the likes of Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting, many in the crowd looked unsure whether to boogie or to stand around discussing the finer points of international debt relief." What Africa needs The Sunday Telegraph editorializes about what Africa needs: "To escape from deprivation, Africans need secure property rights and the rule of law, along with freedom from bullying, thieving and corrupt officials. They also need free and fair access to Europe's and America's markets - a measure that is not even being considered at Gleneagles. Without such liberalisation, ever-greater subsidies from the developed world will certainly not "make poverty history". Africa deserves effectively targeted help. It won't receive it until we are honest about what needs to be done." I don't recall hearing this message during any of the rock stars' pontificating. Weekend list After reading NRO's summer reading list symposium I thought I'd post what I plan to read before Labour Day. My summer reading list 1. The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down the President — and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time by Byron York (I'll have it read by the end of the weekend for a review to appear in the Halifax Herald). 2. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (will have read it by the end of the week because I'm also reading it for review purposes). 3. Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer 4. The Jazz Tradition by Martin Williams (1983 revised edition) 5. Deliver Us From Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict by William Shawcross 6. Will It Liberate: Questions About Liberation Theology by Michael Novak 7. Re-read one of Barbara Pym's novels (No Fond Return of Love, Less than Angels or Some Tame Gazelle) or delve into a Peter DeVries novel that I've previously enjoyed (probably The Mackerel Palace) 8. Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld 9. Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution by Peter Baker 10. If I'm feeling really ambitious I'll start George D. Painter's two volume Marcel Proust. 11. Whatever else I get assigned to review. Saturday, July 02, 2005
Krauthammer wrong I don't say that often but Charles Krauthammer makes a mistake in his Friday Washington Post column when he says that Iraq should not rush the creation of a constitution and that the government should ignore the August deadline for their first draft. Everything he says about delaying the draft is true but it is in what he doesn't say -- the most serious ramification of not presenting a draft by the August 15 deadline -- that the column fails. Yes, the deadline is only six weeks away. Yes, it had taken months to actually form the government after the January elections. Yes, it will be difficult (Krauthammer uses the word impossible) to write a constitution so quickly. Yes, there are other, extremely pressing needs. But if the government doesn't draft a constitution by the deadline, it will be seen as a larger-than-it-really-is failure of the government, Iraqi democracy and even America's attempt to bring democracy to Iraq. Krauthammer is unambiguously right on one point and may even bridge the gap between doing nothing and writing a full constitution. He says, "Better to have the constitutional committee simply draft, for now, one part of the constitution -- a new electoral law to govern the Dec. 15 elections for a permanent government." Whether a constitution that addresses all issues is necessary is open to debate. (To use part of Krauthammer's list of outstanding issues: "oil rights, the ethnic balance of Kirkuk, the official role of Islam and, perhaps most crucially, the question of militias.") If the government let its intentions be known now that it would only address electoral law, it could avoid the embarrassment of missing the deadline or coming up with what will seem to be only half a constitution (the electoral law part) at the last minute. So indeed, Krauthammer and myself are not that far apart. But anything that smacks of failure will be seen as failure and that must be avoided at all costs. Krauthammer's column would have been an important part of the discussion on the looming constitutional deadline if he acknowledged and addressed the consequences of not getting the job done on time. Live8 quotes of the day The Independent has a pretty thorough report of the largely lifeless publicity stunt/feel good/conciousness raising concert. Anyway, here's the best quote of the day: "When Roger Federer, the defending Wimbledon champion, was asked about Live8, he seemed uncertain. 'Is it for Africa?' asked the man who today could earn £630,000 for playing one game of tennis. Once it was explained to him, he approved: 'Well, obviously it's good,' he said." The second best quote came from one of the first Canadian acts -- Tom Cochrane, I think -- who urged the crowd to put their arms in the air to end poverty. Yeah, that'll feed Africa's sick and cure their ill. Quotidian "Unhappily, to be very serious and subtle isn't one of the paths to fortune." -- Henry James letter to Ford Maddox Ford (still then Ford Madox Hueffer), Henry James Letters, collected by Leon Edel Russia's conscripts The Economist has an interesting article on the abuse of Russia's conscripted soldiers and the challenges the country has in manning the military it wants -- this despite drafting 350,000 young Russian men every year. Africa's problem Paul Nugent reviews The State of Africa:A History of Fifty Years of Independence in the Financial Times and provides a picture that many westerners would rather not see. He says: "But the really interesting question is why Africans have put up with such appalling rulers. Basic fear and internal rivalries are important factors, but another reason is that many states have not really engaged with their citizens. Colonial tax-gathering systems imploded at the time of independence, with the result that governments have tended to finance their operations from foreign aid and royalties. Where these have not sufficed, state activities have been allowed to wither away, as happened in Mobutu’s Zaire. In extreme cases, where the state depends almost entirely on rents from oil companies, governments can literally do without their people - hence the 'ethnic cleansing' carried out by the Sudanese authorities in Darfur. While governments have demanded minimal routine compliance from their subjects/citizens, the latter equally come to expect very little from the state in return. This peculiarly African version of the social contract is one that deserves to be thought about more carefully, not least by African intellectuals." I doubt that Bob Geldolf and the participants and spectators of Live 8 have given this any thought. Debt relief will benefit African government's because it will reduce their financial burden but it is unlikely it will help the average African. Can we reasonably expect such governments to now start caring about their people and begin using their limited resources for their country's education, health and infrastructural needs if they are freed from paying for the principle and interest on a half century of bad loans? Navratilova's plan to improve tennis Just this week I talked to a 80-something tennis fan about the state of the game and we agreed that it has been rather boring in recent years. So I was glad to see that former women's tennis great Martina Navratilova provides a ten-item list on how to improve tennis although some of them are less about improving the game than about improving players' pay (increased tournament payouts, increased tour pay, increased sponsorship opportunities and unionization of players). I have no great objection to making tennis "more accessible" and fully endorse Navratilova's suggestion that the screaming that players practise as part of their gamemanship should be curtailed. I find her argument on getting-tough-witt-drug-users-but-not-too-tough a bit juvenile -- the what-if-a-player-is-the-victim-of-some-prankster argument is not fitting of a former tennis great. I like her suggestion that the WTA and ITF should try to reduce injuries most notably by extending the time off in the winter but I don't like her idea of standardizing surfaces and the hardness of balls. Ultimately, the problem of increasingly dull tennis matches is the result of two factors: the trend towards power tennis (overwhelming serves and slams over finesse play) and the loss of players with character. Nothing in Navratilova's list addresses these problems and I'm not sure that they are addressable. Friday, July 01, 2005
Frum's Canada Day thoughts Great two-part diary from David Frum today. The first half are thoughts on Canada's social experiment in same-sex marriage. Frum says: "Advocates of same-sex marriage insist that children will do just fine in same-sex households. 'All that matters,' we’re told, 'is that the children be raised by two loving adults.' So far we have had too little experience with same-sex households to say for sure whether this claim is true or false. (It doesn’t help that so many of the researchers who have looked at the issue have been so determined to produce findings that support same-sex marriage.) Canada has now volunteered to act as a test lab for the proposition." The second part is on Shane Schreiber’s book Shock Army of the British Empire: The Canadian Corps in the Last Hundred Days of the Great War. Frum has convinced me to read it because it demonstrates Canadian military heroism in the final days of World War I. Consider this statistical comparison of Canadian and US forces in the Meuse-Argonne region on the southern portion of the Western front" Troops engaged Americans: 650,000 Canadians: 105,000 Duration of Operations Americans: 47 days Canadians: 100 days Maximum Distance Advanced Americans: 34 miles Canadians: 86 miles German Divisions Defeated (Out of a total of 200) Americans: 46 Canadians: 47 Average Number of Casualties Suffered per German Division Defeated Americans: 2,170 Canadians: 975 Total Casualties Americans: 100,000 Canadians: 45,830 Schreiber says, "the Canadian Corps was able to make a highly significant contribution to the defeat of the German army on the battlefield at precisely half the cost in terms of life and limb as the American army." Frum concludes: "Yet the over-rated General John Pershing is celebrated with a magnificent modern monument on Pennsylvania Avenue – and Arthur Currie’s name is utterly obliterated among his own people." Derb's monthly column is up John Derbyshire's end-of-the-month column is up and it begins with his thoughts on Roger Scruton's Speccie piece on Jean-Paul Sartre last week. But I especially liked The Derb's final paragraph on his observation of Britons leavng Britain: "Jay Nordlinger likes to tell of a conversation he had in London once with David Pryce-Jones, about some constitutional outrage the British government was perpetrating. Jay: 'Why do the British people put up with it, with that great tradition of liberty they have?' P-J: 'Jay, the British people don't live here any more'." Quotidian "If we lamented the decay of the great civilizations of the past, should we not also regret the dreary levelling down of our own?" -- Barbara Pym, Less than Angels Accentuate the positive It's not only a good rule in grammar, it is a good rule in life. That is especially true for Canadian conservatives (and Conservatives). As the following Edmonton Sun editorial -- and I presume all the Sun Media papers because it also ran the Toronto Sun -- reminds us, is a list of the things we can love about Canada (or at least things of which we can be proud): (1) Judge John Gomery. (2) Auditor General Sheila Fraser. (3) Now, the Liberals have to defend Belinda Stronach. (4) Jean Chretien's political legacy, no matter how much he tries to crawl out from under it, is Adscam. (5) No matter how many times Conservative Leader Stephen Harper steps in it, polls suggest Canadians won't give the Liberals another majority government as long as Paul Martin is their leader. (6) The Supreme Court of Canada now backs the majority of Canadians who rightly believe that if our public health-care system cannot deliver timely medical care, then people should be able to use their own resources to obtain it. (7) Canadians continue to ignore the CBC in huge numbers. (8) Canada is such a great country to live in that even our separatists don't really want to separate. In fact, with separatist sentiment allegedly raging in Quebec due to justified fury over Liberal corruption in Adscam, barely half of all Quebecers polled would choose to separate from Canada today - and over half of them say they'd still want to be a part of Canada after they did. (9) As Canadian comedian Glen Foster has rightly observed, when a Canadian gets really, really mad at the government, he doesn't reach for his gun. He writes a letter. (10) The Blue Jays still aren't out of the pennant race. I don't know about that last one -- the Jays moved one game ahead of the New York Yankees today. But other than that, there is not much to argue about and it is a useful reminder, as the Sun says, that "Canada isn't the problem. Liberals are the problem. So don't blame Canada. Blame Liberals." O'Connor resignation Not much to say about Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation from the Supreme Court of the United States except 1) let the party begin (she's gone) and 2) let the fight begin (Democrats will filibuster every worthwhile candidate President George W. Bush might choose). Ronald Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times says that, politically speaking, it is now the apocolypse. As Brownstein notes, in the last big battles over Supreme Court nominations (Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas), talk radio was in its infancy and the internet was exclusively the domain of the military and academy. Fred Barnes writes about the lessons the Bork nomination fight over at the Daily Standard. Check out NRO's Bench Memos regularly for the latest news, analysis and speculation on O'Connor's resignation and possible replacements. Real developing world relief The US Senate approved CAFTA last night by a vote of 55-45. The Central American Free Trade Agreement will reduce trade restrictions among United States, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. While the economic effect on the United States will be negligible, it will greatly benefit the poorer, developing nations of (most of) Central America and the Dominican Republic. Watch the concert and forget the cause The Washington Post has a story a little less deferential to "Bob Geldof, the patron saint of cause-rock," than most papers have run on this side of the Atlantic. (The British papers have been more skeptical about his motives, methods and achievements.) Richard Leiby writes about the near uselessness of the Live 8 project as a solution to Africa's problems: "Many consumers of mass culture -- say, the kids flocking to Philly to hear Destiny's Child or Linkin Park -- won't know, or care, that the G-8 is a tedious affair where Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and heads of state from Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada will debate debt relief, foreign aid, trade policy and suchlike. The scripts for summits are generally written in advance, say those who've attended." Leiby says that everyone who participates can feel good about themselves because they helped raise awareness, although St. Bob says it is about more than raising awareness, its about driving policy. Indeed, St. Bob isn't doing anything to help Africa immediately -- he isn't raising money to help Africans or even to launch a political lobbying campaign. He is merely raising the profile of the issue, but is that enough? John Kirton, a "G-8 expert at the University of Toronto" is quoted by Leiby saying, "It's rather disappointing that Sir Bob Geldof is not firing all of the cylinders in his revolver. He's only firing one bullet -- political lobbying ... They've forgotten that direct giving worked in 1985 ... Africa needs the money right now." The problem with raising the profile in the manner that Live 8 does is that the concert goers will think that by simply attending the event they will have done their part: everyone's aware, now onto the next issue. Campaigns come and go; as Leiby says, "Debt relief: It's the new rain forest!" So why not charge $20 for tickets and send medicine or food to Africa? St. Bob missed an excellent opportunity to get wealthy Americans, Canadians, Brits, French, Italians, Germans, Japanese, South Africans and Russians to provide a little relief for poor and sick Africans who would benefit more from immediate food, clean water and medicine than debt-relief. Relieving the suffering of Africans is an act of mercy, although perhaps a little less fashionable than relieving debt. But with all fashions, the debt relief campaign will soon be forgotten. Especially those who are attending the concerts or watching them on TV. Woodward reveals the famous parking lot and more about Deep Throat Fox News reports that Bob Woodward has finally revealed the location of the parking lot at which he met the most famous un-named source in human history: "1401 Wilson Boulevard in the Rosslyn section of Arlington, Va." Woodward also says in his new book about Deep Throat that Mark Feldt had lied under oath about not being the Watergate source during a 1976 grand jury investigation. Also, Woodward suspected that someone at the Washington Post was leaking information about his source to the White House. USA Today also has a story on Woodward and Deep Throat. Happy Dominion Day/Canada Day I mean that sincerely. Whatever faults Canada may have, it is still a great country. It is still my country. I'll be away today but I'll be back blogging on Saturday and Sunday. Harper bio William Johnson's biography of Stephen Harper -- Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada -- is being released Saturday and my review of it in the Halifax Herald will be published a week from Sunday. Johnson's treatment of Harper is incredibly fair and he admits that his book highlights Harper's strengths because there is more than ample coverage in the MSM about his weaknesses. Johnson is very good on Harper's pre-political life and he captures the closeness of Harper to his father and brothers and why that matters. Unfortunately, the book is never again that penetrating, that insightful. My biggest complaint with Stephen Harper and the Future of Canada is that Johnson views Harper almost exclusively through the prism of Quebec politics -- national unity, federalism, etc..., are accorded much greater weight than Harper's supposed social conservatism, for example. But Johnson even goes as far as to say that Harper's pro-American foreign policy doesn't sell in Quebec -- but doesn't go any further to understand why Harper is pro-American or how such positions affect the fortunes of the Conservatives outside Quebec. This book is an important contribution to the layman's understanding of the divisions on the right since Mulroney's second term as prime minister. It also gives a more complete picture of Harper than one is likely to find in all the features the the daily papers are likely to run on him between now and the next election. It is good book and every political junkie will benefit from having it in their collection. All that is needed for world peace is more laws Gods of the Copybook Headings noted that 91 years ago Tuesday, "Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand. Still, the question remains; would the Liberal gun registry have prevented World War One had it been in place in 1914?" It would not be surprising if they, the Liberals, made this claim. Several years ago, New York's nominally Republican governor, George Pataki, said upon signing hate crimes legislation that if such laws were in effect in 1930s Germany perhaps the Holocaust could have been prevented. Perhaps. |
