Sobering Thoughts |
|
|
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.
Archives
|
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Quotidian "But a man whose career was glorious without intermission, decade after decade, does sorely try out patience." -- Max Beerbohm, "Quia Imperfectum" The Economist on Liberal government From an editorial in The Economist: "CANADA’S motto is 'peace, order, good government.' Few would dispute that the country has succeeded in maintaining the first two under the Liberal administration that has held power since 1993. But the Liberals are widely deemed to have failed on the last..." Finally President George W. Bush makes the case 1) that America is winning the war for Iraq and 2) that American troops will remain until it the country is safe for the Iraqis. Great, great speech. A year earlier would have been nice but better late than never. Mac Owens liked the speech, too: "Our demagogues have pandered to the fears and weaknesses of the American rather than to their virtues and strengths. In his Naval Academy speech, President Bush did just the opposite, exercising his 'duty [as one whom the people have] appointed to be the guardians of [their] … interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection'." Up, up and away Larry Kudlow demonstrates graphically how the Indian economy has grown with liberalization (8% in the last quarter) including allowing FDI in some sectors. Imagine what the largest democracy in the world could do if its economy were opened even more. Just one example of the old socialist thinking that remains: foreigners cannot be majority owners of or control retail operations. This should be the next regulation to go but unfortunately the Communist Party is part of the governing coalition and they are standing in the way of further liberalization and necessary labour market reform. But, as Kudlow says, at least the country has started down the right path and they're seeing results for doing so. Perhaps as the Communists see the benefits of earlier rounds of economic liberalization they will become more open to it. Probably not but its nice to dream. Taylor rebrands Liberals Stephen Taylor's proposed image for the Liberal Party website. Or is Conservative Party website. Either way, the LPC has made it just too easy. Isn't democracy tiring Not only must we endure a 56-day campaign but also four televised debates. I'm joking; I'm writing something in defense of long campaigns being good for democracy. For myself, I'm tired of this election campaign already although that might have something to do with the fact that for the first time I knew how I was voting before the election was called. LIB on the lesbians versus the KofC Let It Bleed summarizes the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal's finding (pdf) in the case of two lesbians who were upset that the Knights of Columbus wouldn't let them use their hall for their wedding reception: "In the end, the case turns on hurt feelings - the panel thinks the Knights were mean (according to some unknown standard), that there is some vague right to be free from mean people, and that this meanness magically translates into $1,000, plus reimbursement of the complainant's costs. Pathetic." Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Can't. Blog. Anymore. Tonight. I don't really feel like reading online tonight. I don't have anything to add about the election. And I'm whipped after going to the funeral of John Muggeridge this morning and taping @issue on ichannel where I joined Senator Anne Cools, George Jonas and Michael Taube for an historical look at the question "what went wrong with the Liberals and liberalism." I'm not sure when the show will be aired; I'll let you know when I hear from the producers. See y'all tomorrow. Quotidian "It will take some hammering to drive a coddling socialism into America." -- George Santayana, Character and Opinion in the United States Star stolen from Hollywood The Los Angeles Times reports: "Someone has walked off with Gregory Peck at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Thieves armed with a concrete saw cut through terrazzo and cement to hoist out the pink, five-pointed star that frames a movie camera emblem and the late actor's brass name, authorities in Hollywood said today." What would one do with Peck's star? You couldn't sell it or even show anyone. No Hall of Fame for Rose Pete Rose's eligibility for the Hall of Fame expired. Here's the list of players that baseball writers will consider this year: Rick Aguilera, Albert Belle, Bert Blyleven, Will Clark, Dave Concepcion, Andre Dawson, Gary DiSarcina, Alex Fernandez, Gary Gaetti, Steve Garvey, Dwight Gooden, Rich Gossage, Ozzie Guillen, Orel Hershiser, Gregg Jefferies, Tommy John, Doug Jones, Don Mattingly, Willie McGee, Hal Morris, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, Bruce Sutter, Alan Trammell, Walt Weiss, John Wetteland. An announcement on who was voted in will be made January 9. If I were a baseball writer I'd vote for Hershiser, Murphy, Smith and Sutter. Mattingly and McGee are two of my all-time favourite athletes but I don't think they deserve entry into the hallowed Hall. Conservatives care, too Alex Singleton on the ideas revolution benefiting the developing world -- ideas most often promulgated by free market advocates: "A lesson from 1980s Britain is that free markets are good but it is better to be in favour of practical ways that free markets can help people. Helping people living in council homes to own their own home actually meant something to people – it helped people climb the economic ladder. And similarly, an enterprise-based scheme like microcredit has an important part to play in helping create an thriving economy in Africa and in encouraging the governmental reforms and recognition of property rights that are so desperately needed. Although four billion people live on less than $1,400, only a fraction have access to basic financial services. Microcredit enables an African, for example, to buy a mobile phone and then set up a business renting it to his village. The phone can then be used to call other towns and villages to find out prices and demand for crops that have been grown, enabling growers to get the best prices. Another enterprise-based scheme, Technoserve, helps identify and encourage entrepreneurs in developing countries. Technoserve helps them find gaps in the market, develop business plans, raise investment, run a small-scale pilot and then expand their businesses. These enterprise-based approaches to development are vastly more effective than the top-down help of which the government, unfortunately, is still far too fond." (HT: Globalization Institute blog) European Football Player of the Year Barca's Ronaldinho won it (no surprise), becoming the third Brazilian to win the prize. Ronaldinho won the FIFA Player of the Year last year. Story here. Past winners of the European Player of the Year here. (Note that the only men to win the award three times were Dutch.) Election prediction Jay Currie predicts that the Tories will be reduced to about 50 seats. I can see this happening. The Liberals and NDP could reduce the Conservative caucus by half because 1) many of the close Ontario battles in 2004 went Conservative and the Liberals could rebound, 2) the Liberals are gaining strength in BC while the Tories are bleeding support, and 3) the NDP could pick up a few of the Tory seats in Saskatchewan and the Liberals are hoping to pick off a pair of Conservatives in Manitoba. That said, the conditions are also ripe for a Conservative victory with a pickup of about 40 seats. Or things could stay mostly the same. I think a status quo election is highly unlikely because the balance is likely to be altered and hold on power by the Liberals more precarious. My guess is that a total of 40 seats will change hands but who knows where the chips will fall? Is that a lot of predictions? Yeah. But a campaign changes everything and who knows what will happen over the next month-and-a-half? If an election were held today, I think the Liberals, NDP and Bloc would each pick up a handful of seats and the Tories losing about 10. But as the old joke has it, if an election were held today almost everyone would be totally surprised. Monday, November 28, 2005
Quotidian "... all men have equal rights; but not to equal things." -- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France The cost of an election Who cares. Isn't it odd that the Left, which has no problems spending taxpayer money almost any other time, raises this canard when it comes to removing the Liberals from power/allowing people to choose their representatives> Over at The Shotgun, Russ Kuykendall notes that the cost of not having an election is far greater. Does the secret of the Conservatives' success lie in Norwood? Or, Canada's state-run healthcare is the real scandal David Gratzer says that the Liberals could be in trouble and because of much more than Adscam: "The Liberals’ woes, however, run deeper than this scandal and Martin’s handling of it. For years, Canadians have had an unwritten compact with the party: We’d pay high taxes and keep reelecting them and, in exchange, the Liberals would run the country competently. Obviously, the scandal has tarnished their image as astute managers. But even before, the deal was falling apart. With taxes rising steadily over the past decade, after-tax income has essentially stagnated. Yet Canada’s welfare state is rotten to the core. Take Canada’s much vaunted health-care system. In a recent poll, more than 80 percent of Canadians rate the system 'in crisis.' People wait for practically any diagnostic test, surgical procedure, or specialist consult. The doctors’ shortage is so severe that, in Norwood, Ont., winning the town lottery isn’t a ticket to material wealth. With just one family doctor to service the entire town, the physician takes only 50 new patients a year. As a result, the town holds an annual lottery with the 50 winners getting an appointment with him." Calgary Grit on the Tories Calgary Grit has the best short history of the Tories' year thus far: "Belinda and Peter started dating! But then she, like, dumped him!!! OMG! (for full details see what should be the post of the year). And Harper wore a funny cowboy outfit! Yeah, there was some policy mixed into all of that and the Tories did back 1/3 of Goodale's budgets. But really, once you get past tight leather vests and Belinda's romances, the rest of the stuff just seems trivial." CG offers some free advice for Stephen Harper and his party including a slogan ("We won't win a majority...how bad can we mess it up?") and a strategy (pray for snow). His prediction: 100-120 seats which he concludes means that Harper will either be prime minister or gone by the end of January. JQW on the administration's failure to defend its Iraq policy James Q. Wilson offers some free advice to President George W. Bush in Opinion Journal. Noting that, "What most Americans care about is not who is lying but whether we are winning," Wilson provides a speech the president should give to convince Americans about the wisdom of continuing the fight for Iraq which includes a tremendous number of victories for freedom: "We defeated Saddam Hussein's army in just a few weeks. None of the disasters that many feared would follow our invasion occurred. Our troops did not have to fight door to door to take Baghdad. The Iraqi oil fields were not set on fire. There was no civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites. There was no grave humanitarian crisis. Saddam Hussein was captured and is awaiting trial. His two murderous sons are dead. Most of the leading members of Saddam's regime have been captured or killed. After our easy military victory, we found ourselves inadequately prepared to defeat the terrorist insurgents, but now we are prevailing. Iraq has held free elections in which millions of people voted. A new, democratic constitution has been adopted that contains an extensive bill of rights. Discrimination on the basis of sex, religion or politics is banned. Soon the Iraqis will be electing their first parliament. An independent judiciary exists, almost all public schools are open, every hospital is functioning, and oil sales have increased sharply. In most parts of the country, people move about freely and safely. According to surveys, Iraqis are overwhelmingly opposed to the use of violence to achieve political ends, and the great majority believe that their lives will improve in the future. The Iraqi economy is growing very rapidly, much more rapidly than the inflation rate. In some places, the terrorists who lost the war are now fighting back by killing Iraqi civilians. Some brave American soldiers have also been killed, but most of the attacks are directed at decent, honest Iraqis. This is not a civil war; it is terrorism gone mad. And the terrorists have failed. They could not stop free elections. They could not prevent Iraqi leaders from taking office. They could not close the schools or hospitals. They could not prevent the emergence of a vigorous free press that now involves over 170 newspapers that represent every shade of opinion." The revolution will be blogged The Daily Telegraph has a story on Iran's blogging dissidents: "With the closure of most independent newspapers and magazines in Iran, blogging - publishing an online diary - has become a powerful tool in the dissidents' arsenal by providing individuals with a public voice. An Iranian blogger known as Saena, wrote recently: 'Weblogs are one weapon that even the Islamic Republic cannot beat'." But the mullahs will try. The Telegraph reports that there an estimated 100,000 Iranian blogs, that most are written in English and that many have been arrested and beaten for opposing the regime. Among those punished is Omid Sheikhan, who received a one year prison term and 124 lashes because his blog featured political cartoons. Earlier this month, Reporters with Borders named Iran as one of 15 enemies of the internet. But despite the information ministry's war on blogging, the battle to inform fellow Iranians and the world of the atrocities and opposition to the regime continues. As the Telegraph reports: "But the Iranian authorities are fighting a losing battle to crush these new outlets of dissent. As fast as one perpetrator is tracked down and closed, another rises in its place and takes up the cause." Sunday, November 27, 2005
Subsidizing those well enough off to travel Finance Committee chair Massimo Pacetti wants to offer tax breaks to those whose travels take them to three provinces in one holiday. Of cucumbers and Christ Noting that the 27th installment of VeggieTales is about to be released, World magazine columnist Gene Edward Veith questions the use of vegetables in telling Biblical stories: "But dramatizing Bible stories with vegetables can sometimes risk trivializing the Word of God. Reducing the Battle of Jericho to a cucumber and French peas having a slushy fight is funny, yes, but it seems more like a parody than a retelling from the book of Joshua. More irreverent still is the VeggieTale Nativity Set featuring Jesus as a baby carrot. Episodes that do not presume to play out Bible stories and instead apply biblical concepts to life in a vegetative state ('The Grapes of Wrath,' 'Madame Blueberry,' 'The Fib from Outer Space') are more satisfying." But Veith somewhat contradictorily concludes whether it is possible for animated Biblically based (or at least Bible-themed) entertainment "to say something about Christ." Anyway, the Lord of the Beans will probably end up under the Tuns family Christmas tree. Irreverent? Intent matters and Big Idea Productions has no intention of being sacrilegious. Weekend list 10 most pleasurable non non-fiction writers to read 10. The novels of Fyodor Dostoevski 9. The short stories of William Trevor 8. The novels of William Faulkner 7. The short stories of Eudora Welty 6. The novels of Barbara Pym 5. The novels of Anthony Trollope 4. The plays of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (William Shakespeare) 3. The novels of Henry James 2. The poems of Rudyard Kipling 1. The novels of Anthony Powell Shotgun stuff Kevin Libin on how the Tories managed to dodge a bullet in MFEMFEM and me on the new Tory plan to form the government. Quotidian "Purity of line and form, of cheek and chin and lip and brow, a colour that seemed to live and glow, a radiance of grace and eminence and success -- these things were seated in triumph in the face of the Princess, and her visitor, as he held himself in his chair, trembling with relevation, questioned if he were really of the same substance with the humanity of he had hitherto known." -- Henry James, The Princess Casamassima Saturday, November 26, 2005
Conflict of interest Greg Staples and myself weigh in on a huge conflict of interest affecting the Liberals and Bell Globemedia that no one is talking about. Friday, November 25, 2005
Why I wanted Paris to get the 2012 Olympics Over at Samizdata Brian Micklethwait notes that the costs of the London Games are expected to double. I would only add that I expect them to double again before 2012. When buying Rescuing Canada's Right from Chapters ... Look for it in the politics section. I've been to two Chapters and one Indigo at which the computer says there are none available in the store even though copies of Rescuing Canada's Right are on the shelf. Also, in two of the three cases, the not-very-helpful staff at the store checked the computer for me and said that the store had not ordered any and there was no record of ordering any. At one store, I was advised to purchase it online or to make a special order for one. Both times I informed the staff that there was several copies of the book on the shelf and both times the staff appeared a little confused. Frankly, so am I. The moral of the story is that if you are going to buy the book at the bricks and mortar store, check for it on the shelf, don't just check the computer. Quotidian This much, O heaven--if I should brood or rave, Pity me not; but let the world be fed, Yea, in my madness if I strike me dead, Heed you the grass that grows upon my grave. If I dare snarl between this sun and sod, Whimper and clamour, give me grace to own, In sun and rain and fruit in season shown, The shining silence of the scorn of God. Thank God the stars are set beyond my power, If I must travail in a night of wrath, Thank God my tears will never vex a moth, Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower. Men say the sun was darkened: yet I had Thought it beat brightly, even on--Calvary: And He that hung upon the Torturing Tree Heard all the crickets singing, and was glad. -- G.K. Chesterton, "A Prayer in Darkness" George Best, RIP "The first superstar" of soccer, George Best passed away. The Associated Press and Daily Telegraph remember the Manchester United winger's career. In 465 career appearances for United, he scored 180 goals. He scored 9 goals in 37 caps for Northern Ireland. He died after complications resulting from an adverse reaction to medicine he was taking to combat alcholism. As Best said in his autobiography Blessed, "Drink is the only opponent I've been unable to beat." It beat him at the age of 59. Yahoo Sports has links to various other stories about the one-time soccer great -- a player that Pele once called the greatest soccer player in the world. The tsunami windfall The Financial Times reports: "Many aid agencies offered either pre-built boats or help building fishing boats following last December’s tsunami, which left more than 130,000 dead in Aceh and vast areas of its coastline devastated. But that generosity appears to have gone too far, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies warned on Tuesday, with the province now facing a situation where, if all the pledges were kept, it would have more boats than it had before the tsunami." Before the tsunami, Aceh has 5,600 motorized boats and 4,700 were damaged. Aid agencies have delivered and promised 5,900 motorized boats. That would total 6,800 motorized boats. Some people at Red Cross are now worried about over-fishing. Rescuing Canada's Right. And Conrad Black I attended the book launch of Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin's Rescuing Canada's Right last night. It's been a while since I've attended a conservative event so I got to see a lot of political friends I haven't seen in a while. It was a lot of fun. Great book, too. I'll have my review up after it gets published. My only complaint about the evening is about the media which was there to cover Conrad Black. Here's CTV's report: "Black made a surprise appearance at a book launch in MFEMFEM on Thursday night. Confronted by reporters as he waited for his driver outside the posh Albany Club of MFEMFEM, Black was asked if he will fight the charges." Lord Black arrived at the Albany Club and was swarmed by media. He walked over to the authors, circled back to the door, talked to Gerry Nicholls for a few minutes and left. His limo was not waiting outside and he was forced to take questions from a very hostile media while he waited. Funny, all the media accounts last night on TV refered to Black as angry and hostile but that would describe the reaction of almost every person at the "posh Albany Club" last night after watching the behaviour of the media vultures. But the CTV report is untruthful. They said Black was "confronted by reporters as he waited for his driver outside" the Club. But they, the media, were waiting for him inside the Club, followed him around inside the Club were he refused to answer their questions and only when he left did he answer their questions outside. This may seem like a small thing but it is this type of dishonesty -- a dishonesty that makes the media look less vulturistic (if that's a word) -- that infuriates me. Not enough to not enjoy the book launch. It also reinforces one of the arguments Adam and Tasha make in Rescuing Canada's Right that conservative businesses and businessmen need to step up and create a conservative media (and not just magazines of opinion but alternative television, radio and newspaper sources). Anyway, about RCR, a list of Adam and Tasha's media appearances can be viewed here. NCC & Brison The National Citizens Coalition has a page up on the whole "mini epic" including links to what other bloggers said about it. I'm chime in with my two-cents: I'm disappointed that Scott Brison apologized because I wanted his unkissable ass taken to court. One question: Do real apologies take 17 days to deliver? The state discriminates in killing criminals but not how you would think Simon Heffer joins the "certifiably insane or a complete pervert" in England by speaking publicly about his support of capital punishment in The Speccie: "For, be in no doubt, although we forfeited 40 years ago the right of the state to impose the capital sentence after a fair trial in a court of law, the state still reserves to itself the right to take life. Ask, for example, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by agents of the state in July this year when he was mistaken for a suicide bomber. However awful the consequences of such an error, the state must continue to have our power, as part of its duty of protecting us. Yet we have, since 1965, been in the ironic position of having outlawed execution with trial, but continuing to permit execution without trial. I suppose there is a logic there, but I can't see it." Thursday, November 24, 2005
Happy Thanksgiving to our American friends Opinion Journal publishes the editorial the Wall Street Journal has printed the since 1961. Terry Teachout has three Thanksgiving themed quotes. Rich Lowry's list of things for which he is thankful. Among that for which I am thankful is William F. Buckley. George F. Will has his appreciation of the godfather of American conservatism in today's Washington Post. Buckley helped make conservatism respectable. As Will has noted before, without Buckley there would have been no National Review, without National Review there would have been no Goldwater in '64, without Goldwater there wouldn't have been the Reagan presidency. A tragedy that should've never happened News 14 reports that Min Soon Chang, a University of North Carolina (Charlotte) freshman, was killed when a drunk driver traveling more than 100 mph down the wrong way on the interstate hit him head-on. The drunk driver was Jorge Humberto Hernandez-Soto, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who has been convicted of impaired driving three times and deported 17 times. I'll repeat that: convicted of impaired driving three times and deported 17 times. Americans need to get serious about illegal immigration. Min Soon Chang is the second North Carolinian killed by a drunk-driving, illegal immigrant this year. (HT: Vdare blog) Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Quotidian "Our dependent poor are not citizens. They get their benefits by formula, not according to their behavior. They have the rights to these 'entitlements,' but no responsiblities." -- Jack Beatty, The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley (1874-1958) Cutler to seek Tory nod in Ottawa South Allan Cutler, the man who blew the whistle on the sponsorship scandal, is going to seek the Conservative nomination in Ottawa South to face David McGuinty. CBC has the story here. Political Staples says this is a good thing: "Has Alan Cutler always been a Conservative or is this a reaction to the treatment he received from Liberal governments? Regardless, this is nothing but good news for the Conservatives. I hope he wins the riding nomination and then gets elected as an MP. The punishment levelled against Mr. Cutler, for doing the right thing, is unforgivable and he would could if his courage could be displayed in Parliament." I agree that Parliament would benefit from having more people like Cutler but am worried that his role in exposing Adscam will be discredited by charges of partisanship. Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Quotidian "I have reasons for believing that the training a medical student has to go through is to a writer's benefit. He acquires a knowledge of human nature which is invaluable. He sees it at its best and at its worst. When people are ill, when they are afraid, they discard the mask which they wear in health. The doctor sees them as they really are, selfish, hard, grasping, cowardly; but brave too, generous, kindly and good. He is tolerant of their frailities, awed by their virtues." -- Somerset Maugham, "The Short Story" I would guess the NDP are going to hit Martin with this during the campaign Canadian socialist magazine This has a story on "The dirty secrets of the Canadian shipping industry’s cleanup practices" which, of course, includes Canada Steamship Lines. Alex Roslin describes the process of cargo sweeping and then reports the extent of the problem: "Canadian and US shipping companies pump an estimated 2,500 tons of cargo residue into the lakes each year during 11,000 ship transits, according to a 1999 report by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Data from a study commissioned by the US Coast Guard in 2003 suggests that 80 percent of the dumping takes place in shipping lanes that pass through sensitive-species habitats. Its numbers imply that 45,000 to 64,000 tons of cargo—the equivalent of 6,000 to 9,000 garbage-truck loads—has been dumped into the lakes since the practice started. And nearly all the discharges qualify as pollutants under guidelines of the Ontario government, according to a 1993 study commissioned by the Canadian Coast Guard." Politically this is important because CSL accounts for more than 10% of the cargo ships that ply the Great Lakes each year. It will be fun to watch Prime Minister MFEM Martin imply that one of the reasons that the Tories are scary is because they will wreak the environment when he might have to defend attacks from the Left on his own, er, former company's record. Monday, November 21, 2005
Comments and stuff You can send comments to MFEM_MFEM[AT]yahoo.com. I'll respond when I can but I generally do respond. Be patient. Especially this week because it's production week at The Interim and I have a major deadline for the end of the week. Consequently, blogging will be light and infrequent for the remainder of the week. Quotidian "Not magnitude, not lavishness, But Form—the Site; Not innovating wilfulness, But reverence for the Archetype." —- Herman Melville, "Greek Architecture" So close yet so far Neil Hrab writes for The American Spectator online about an Israeli-UAE story and includes this interesting tidbit: "The international dialing code for Israel is 972. The dialing code for the UAE is 971. They are close neighbors, at least in the phone book, if not by geography. Yet you cannot dial Israel directly from Dubai, my friend said. The UAE telephone monopoly won't allow it." Anglican bishop speaks on British multiculturalism and doesn't suck The London Times reports that Dr. John Sentamu, the soon to be enthroned Archbishop of York, said that St. George's Day (April 23) should be celebrated and that Britons should not be afraid to express their Britishness. The Uganada-born bishop told the Times: "Multiculturalism has seemed to imply, wrongly for me, let other cultures be allowed to express themselves but do not let the majority culture at all tell us its glories, its struggles, its joys, its pains." And: "I speak as a foreigner really. The English are somehow embarrassed about some of the good things they have done. They have done some terrible things but not all the Empire was a bad idea. Because the Empire has gone there is almost the sense in which there is not a big idea that drives this nation." And this: "What is it to be English? It is a very serious question ... I think we have not engaged with English culture as it has developed. When you ask a lot of people in this country, ‘What is English culture?’, they are very vague. It is a culture that whether we like it or not has given us parliamentary democracy. It is the mother of it. It is the mother of arguing that if you want a change of government, you vote them in or you vote them out. It is a place that has allowed reason to be at the heart of all these things, that has allowed genuine dissent without resort to violence, that has allowed all the fantastic music that we experience in our culture." Very nice, very welcome words. But this is the best, most wise thing he said, as he warned against making a fetish of tolerance: "It seems to be the word tolerance is bad because it just means putting up with it. I was raised in the spirit of magnanimity. That is a better word than tolerance. If you are magnanimous in your judgments on other people, there is a chance that I will recognise that you will help me in my struggle." If it is a worthwhile struggle, that is. But why should I tolerate the unworthwhile struggle. The Times editorial on the bishop's comments is worth reading, too. It says that, "The Archbishop does not denounce the notion of multiculturalism but he wants it to be meaningful." Too much of multiculturalism is pose -- the mindless and gutless show of tolerance of which Bishop Sentamu is rightly critical. To be meaningful, multiculturalism must respect -- or at the very least acknowledge -- the nation's heritage or the very foundation of that polyethnic society is likely to collapse. Again the Times editorial: "Multiculturalism has obvious merit. A society has, though, to have a spine in order for it to possess a functioning body. A nation without a uniform sense of shared values is not destined to have a sense of itself. The Archbishop is right to articulate that point, and correct when he notes, without embarrassment, the essential part that Christianity has played in the formation of modern British culture. Candour and clarity are not always qualities associated with the highest echelon of the Church of England. It is appropriate for the Archbishop of York to make the most of his platform as well as his pulpit, even if that may court controversy occasionally." Are there no Lloyd Bentsens in the Democratic Party of 2005? Over at NRO, John Tamny wonders why no Democratic Congressmen support serious tax cuts. Good question. Aside from the politics, Democratic hardening of their anti-tax cut stance is threatening the American economy. But in an age when the president takes the blame and gets the credit (usually) for economy's performance, perhaps Democrats want the economy to tank. Missed manners and the decline of civilization Washington Post columnist George F. Will on the rude people who are using cell phones and video iPods: "Many people have no notion of propriety when in the presence of other people, because they are not actually in the presence of other people, even when they are in public." Quoting from Lynne Truss' Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door, Will says: "And multiplying technologies of portable entertainments will enable 'limitless self-absorption,' which will make people solipsistic, inconsiderate and antisocial. Hence manners are becoming unmannerly in this 'age of lazy moral relativism combined with aggressive social insolence'." Kathy Shaidle adds: "Of course, one reason people hide in plain sight with their iPods and so forth is because they're trying to block out other people's pre-existing rudeness to begin with. If Apple came up with an iNose for smells, they'd really be doing something." Let me add my two cents. It is not only rude but incomprehensible to me why two people both listening to their iPods would also talk (loudly) to one another in public spaces. It is rude because the volume of conversation required to be heard over the music ensures the resultant conversation is shared with the entire streetcar. Incomprehensible because ... well do I have to explain that it makes no sense why anyone would listen to music through earphones and try to carry on a conversation. Is it the music or the conversation that is not good enough to warrant one's full attention? Will says in his column: "Because manners are means of extending respect, especially to strangers, this question arises: Do manners and virtue go together? Truss thinks so, in spite of the possibility of 'blood-stained dictators who had exquisite table manners and never used their mobile phones in a crowded train compartment to order mass executions.' Actually, manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related -- as a foundation is related to a house -- to the word civilization." One might think that Will exaggerates but I wonder. This morning, as I witness almost every morning on the streetcars in Toronto, there was the usual anti-social behaviour. One particular high school girl was cussing, sat with her feet on the adjacent seat despite the fact that people were standing and boasted of the "need" to punch various acquaintances and teachers. She used the f-word abundantly and loudly. When a man asked her to move her feet she refused. He went to sit down anyway and she reluctantly moved her legs but under heavy protest. She threatened him and she and a friend, who was sitting behind her, called him fat and repeatedly told him to ... em, perform an anatomical impossibility upon himself. When people looked their way to see what the commotion was about, the two girls hurled obscenities their way, too. They complained loudly and with a number of cuss words that nobody has any manners anymore and that they would appreciate if everyone would leave them alone. Eventually another person gave up her seat so the older gentleman could get up and the girl could have her second seat back. Now this scene is not quite the Hobbesian state of nature but I think it is a sign of our times in which anti-social behaviour makes more of our public spaces unfit for civilized people. To his credit, the gentleman who originally sat beside the girl did not once try to admonish or otherwise engage his tormenter. I would hate to see what would have happened if he did. As Truss says, we have "created people who will not stand to be corrected in any way." Sunday, November 20, 2005
Quotidian "It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work." -- Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life Weekend list Ten people (living and dead) I would like to interview to better understand the 20th century America 10. Edward Teller (1908-2003, nuclear and molecular physicist) 9. Michael Barone (1945-present, journalist, principal author of the Almanac of American Politics) 8. Louis Armstrong (1901-1971, jazz cornetist, trumpeter, vocalist) 7. Murray Kempton (1917-1997, journalist, author of Part of Our Time) 6. William F. Buckley (1925-present, author, columnist, founder of National Review) 5. Daniel J. Boorstin (1914-2004, historian and Librarian of Congress) 4. Jackie Robinson (1919-1972, first black player in the Major Leagues) 3. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969, general and president) 2. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003, academic and senator) 1. Richard Nixon (1913-1994, Vice President and President of the United States) Blogging the Tory leadership debate ConservativeHome blogged the leadership debate between the Davids Cameron and Davis. All the posts can be conveniently viewed here. Saturday, November 19, 2005
Quotidian "Obviously it is normal to think of oneself as younger than one is, but fatal to want to be younger." -- W.H. Auden to Robert Craft, quoted in Humphrey Carpenter's W.H. Auden: A Biography Social conservatives and moderate, so-called fiscal conservatives To continue on the theme ... Leon H. at RedState examines the voting records of Republican Congressmen and finds that the ones who are actually voting to cut spending are "a virtual who's who of rabid social conservatives." But, as Leon says, when you are losing you have to blame someone. Socons are an easy bogeyman. Friday, November 18, 2005
Tax cutting zeal is outside DC Even if the Republican Congress/Bush administration is not serious about cutting taxes, USA Today reports that several states are looking at small reductions in property and business taxes and targeted reductions in sales tax on items such as food. This follows widespread increases in tax revenue and budget surpluses, even in states such as California. Unfortunately, it does not appear that any state is seriously exploring the viability of cutting personal income tax rates. The paper reports that in the first nine months of 2005, revenue is up 7.2%, while spending increased 6%. Perhaps if state legislatures also cut spending they could find a way to cut income taxes, too. About those Conrad Black indictments I agree with Adam Daifallah about the unseemly glee of the Conrad Black haters ("So the Conrad Black haters are sipping champagne today. The amount of schadenfreude witnessed since his troubles began is second to none, or maybe second only to that seen during Martha Stewart's tribulations.") I also agree with Adam that "the whole thing is a waste of time" although I don't share his optimism that "Justice will be done." I hope it is, but as Ayn Rand noted long ago, capitalists are the most persecuted minority in America. (Well, maybe second most persecuted after free thinkers.) Martha Stewart did nothing wrong either and she ended up in jail and with a sinking reality TV series. Three Mark Steyn observations are worth highlighting: 1. "What I find distressing about this zealous 'regulation' of US businesses is that, in essence, most of this dispute is a matter of opinion: How much should Conrad Black be paid for running Hollinger? I dunno. Thirty grand? Thirty million? You say one, I say the other. But once the compensation's been approved - as almost everything was - why should it be retrospectively criminalised?" 2. Can't Barbara Amiel's birthday bash be considered a legitimate expense considering she worked in several high-profile jobs for Hollinger? 3. About the more than $100 million in legal fees incurred by Hollinger since the persecution of Conrad Black and tarnishing of his image begun: "It hardly needs pointing out that the investigation into the Blacks' alleged milking of the company's funds has, in fact, milked a lot more of the company's funds." Martin's flags of convenience You can read the cover story I wrote for Business Report for the October issue on business owner/politician Paul Martin wraps himself in the Canadian flag during election time but flies CSL ships under foreign flags to avoid high Canadian corporate taxes. The story also raises questions about whether policies were implemented to benefit his company and whether handing the business over to his sons negates concerns about a potential conflict of interest. Here are the final two paragraphs: "Might Martin's high-minded ideals have taken a back seat to private enrichment? When Martin ran for Parliament in 1988, his wealth was estimated to be $20 million, but current low-end estimates peg his private worth at $70 million. CSL's net worth has certainly benefited from its exploitation of tax-haven rules -- rules for which then finance minister Paul Martin was responsible. Are we to believe that Martin would not similarly affect government policy to benefit his sons' company, now that he is prime minister?" There is no new information in the story, but it does, usefully I think, re-raise questions the prime minister has never sufficiently answered. Thus it reminds Canadians that an examination of Martin's ethics do not begin and end with Judge John Gomery's exoneration. A little something for ST's Hungarian readers Hungarian blogger Pestiside notes that the Hungarian government has an online computer game which allows you to explore their budget. Furthermore, budgets submitted by participants will be read by bureaucrats, perhaps looking for some fresh ideas about how to cut spending for which they could take credit. (This would never happen here in Canada; at least not the spending cuts part.) Unfortunately, you have to be fluent in Hungarian. (HT: PSD blog) Socons and limited government Yesterday I noted this George F. Will column to highlight the out-of-control spending of the GOP Congress/Bush White House. I referred briefly to Will's criticism of some social conservatives. Burkean Canuck calls it a "diatribe" which I don't think it was, but BC uses the column as a jumping off point to make an important point about socons and so-called "moderate" conservatives who often juxtaposed to socons as fiscal conservatives -- summarizing Ramesh Ponnuru's Corner post, BC says: "[T]hose most likely to agree with Will on reducing spending and lowering taxes are social conservatives, and those most likely to disagree with him on spending and taxes are not social conservatives." This is true. (The distinction between social or moral conservatives and fiscal conservatives blurs the truth that many conservatives are both.) The Burkean one illustrates the point with a personal anecdote: "Several years ago, a friend and classmate from grad school was elected a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. My friend very graciously invited me to visit him in Washington, D.C. while he was a Congressman. While I was there, I tagged along with him to a GOPAC dinner at the Corcoran Gallery near the White House that featured a keynote from the Governor of Oklahoma. My friend was invited to say a few words at the beginning of the dinner, and then we were seated with a table of large donors. We talked about how to reduce public spending and taxes and a whole variety of subjects. When my friend left the table for a few minutes to return some calls, our tablemates started grilling me about his views on this or that subject. We had anticipated this, and I had already been given the go-ahead to fill them in. Our dinner companions were most interested in whether or not my friend was a social conservative, and what public stands he had taken on those issues. It soon became clear why, and if there were any doubt, they explained . . . Whether or not they themselves were social conservatives, they believed that the Congressman most likely to follow through on commitments to reduce public spending and lower taxes was someone who had taken public stands on issues on the social conservative side." Give it up Mr. Stevens Two years and $100,000 later, no court will agree to Sinclair Stevens request to nullify the merger of the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative parties. The Federal Court of Appeals is the latest to reject Stevens' sore loser routine. (HT: Right Ho!) Liberalizing India's economy Great news from India, as reported by the Financial Times: "India’s Communist-backed government will on Thursday afternoon consider a sweeping liberalisation of foreign direct investment rules that would kick start a long-stalled programme of economic reforms." Specifically, the government is proposing permitting 100% foreign direct investment in a number of sectors including airport construction, oil & gas infrastructure and cash & carry wholesale trading. (The communists have long opposed this last item figuring it would open the door to foreign-owned retailers.) The government is also considering opening up FDI in the exploration and mining of coal, lignite and diamonds, and in the cultivation of several important plantation crops including coffee, tea and rubber. These are big moves that will allow India to better compete with China which attracts more than ten times the amount of FDI. Friendly advice for a rival The Washington Times praises the tight-rope that President George W. Bush is walking in Asia: reiterating the importance of America's close relationship with Japan, challenging China on democracy without pressing them on specific human rights abuses, and working with Japan to be a regional counter to Chinese influence in east Asia. I think Bush should do more (most importantly calling upon China to close down its laogai prison system and committing America to the defense of Taiwan and abandoning the silly and out-dated One China policy) but I'm surprised he's going as far as he is. And while I'm not a fan of buying Chinese products at Wal-Mart knowing that they might very well have been built with prison labour, I'm no fan of slapping sanctions on China. So what the Bush administration is doing -- urging Beijing to liberalize its politics as well as its markets and to respect basic human and civil rights -- while preparing to curb China's regional influence until it does so, seems a reasonable (workable and moral) balance. I would just wish they would do it a little more, and a little more strenuously. More bad news from Africa Both stories from the Financial Times "Ethiopia and Eritrea edge back towards brink of war" The fruits of democracy slow to ripen in Kenya To be fair, the story on the Ethiopia/Eritrea border is that tensions are high and the story from Kenya is on the constitutional referendum being held next week. But it will be a great day when the likelihood of war in east Africa is not imminent and democracy is secure in Kenya (and elsewhere). Fantastic quote "If the French social model is so great, why is the country in flames?" - Peter Mendelson (Via Samizdata) What's wrong with Hollywood It's liberal. We all knew that, of course, but as Brian C. Anderson notes in a column in the Los Angeles Times, Hollywood biggies -- producers and actors -- have put ideology ahead of making money. They also value more highly the esteem of their colleagues than the affection of the movie-going audience: "IT WAS IN THE late 1960s and 1970s that Hollywood nearly stopped making such movies. Instead, it began to produce the countercultural films of 'New Hollywood' — such as Arthur Penn's violent, criminal-glorifying 'Bonnie and Clyde' (1967) and Hal Ashby's paean to the sexual revolution, 'Shampoo' (1975) — that wowed critics, who shared their anti-establishment attitudes. Some of these films did decent box office, but even 'Bonnie and Clyde' only lands around 850th on the all-time money list. In general, by the late 1960s, in the years after Hollywood dumped its old production code and started making edgier movies, attendance at theaters fell by half, to about 20 million from about 40 million. Hollywood didn't crack the 30-million-ticket mark again until 2002 and 2003, largely because of the box-office success of the first two 'Lord of the Rings' installments. Why does Tinseltown churn out so few such moneymakers? The wish for recognition as artistes by liberal elites is a big factor, says Emmy- and Oscar-nominated writer/director Lionel Chetwynd. From the late 1960s on, he says, 'if you wanted to be seen as an artist, you have to be a liberal'." Thursday, November 17, 2005
Quotidian "Experience has no value for the presumptuous man; faith is nothing to him; he substitutes for it a pretended individual conviction and to arrive at this conviction dispenses with all inquiry and with all study; for these means appear too trivial to a mind which believes itself strong enough to embrace at one glance all questions and all facts. Laws have no value for him, because he has not contributed to make them, and it would be beneath a man of his parts to recognize the limits traced by rude and ignorant generations. Power resides in himself; why should he submit himself to that which was only useful for the man deprived of light and knowledge?" -- Clemens von Metternich, "A Confession of Faith," sent as a secret memorandum to Tsar Alexander I in 1820, reprinted in his Memoirs The Baathist Galloway Saddam-loving British MP George Galloway spoke at Damascus University on November 13. Among the pearls of wisdom he had was this gem: "The reason that Syria is facing this crisis is not because of any bad thing which Syria has done or any weaknesses within its democracy, or within its economy, or within its human rights record - and there are weaknesses in all three of these. The reason why Syria is being threatened is not because of anything bad which she did, but because of the good which she is doing. That's the reason why Syria is being threatened - because she will not betray the Palestinian resistance, because she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, because she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and above all - more than any of these others - because Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq. These are the reasons why Syria is being targeted by these imperial powers." More from Memri. Or watch the video. (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Some interesting facts about the G-O-P The headline on George F. Will's Washington Post column is "Grand Old Spenders." Ouch! But I guess the truth hurts. But it also matters. Slamming the religious right for failing to be more discriminating in the battles they chose, he says that the conservative coalition: "... will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades." I agree on this point. But more importantly is Will's comment that finding a limited-government conservative in the Republican Party is no easy task. Consider some facts about the GOP Congress and Republican president: * Congressional Republicans are unable to agree to cut the growth of Medicaid from 7.3% to 7%. * Congressional Republicans are unable to cut $54 billion over five years from budgets projected to total $12.5 trillion. That is just a 0.04% cut but the GOP Congress won't do it. * Despite the fact that Republicans have won 7 of the last 10 presidential elections and have held Congress since 1994 (save for about 18 months when the Senate was under Democratic control), per-household federal spending exceeds $22,000 per year, the highest level since World War II. * Since 2001, federal spending on education has doubled. * Federal spending "has grown twice as fast under President Bush as under President Bill Clinton" and the War on Terror can't be blamed for that; 65% of spending growth is "unrelated to national security," Will notes. * Here's my favourite: "In 1991, the 546 pork projects in the 13 appropriation bills cost $3.1 billion. In 2005, the 13,997 pork projects cost $27.3 billion." I thought the Republicans who rode into Washington on Newt Gingrich's coat-tails were going to do things differently. But consider this: "Washington subsidizes the cost of water to encourage farmers to produce surpluses that trigger a gusher of government spending to support prices. It is almost comforting that $2 billion is spent each year paying farmers not to produce. Farm subsidies, most of which go to agribusinesses and affluent farmers, are just part of the $60 billion in corporate welfare that dwarfs the $29 billion budget of the Department of Homeland Security." The argument from Republicans is always that the Democrats would be worse. Maybe. But as Will says, "the government is more undisciplined than ever." Martin doesn't want a 'holiday' time election Prime Minsiter says a holiday time election would offend people because ... well ... you know ... the orthodox celebrate the New Year on a different day than many other Canadians. Really. That's what he said. Actually read the comment, as quoted by CTV: "When you are talking about the holiday season, there are also other religions that have different New Year's at different dates and their holidays at a different date and I think we have to be respectful of that -- the orthodox churches, for example." What an idiot -- " ... at different dates and their holidays at a different date..." You gotta be joking. How did this man rise to become leader of any political party. His statement is a rambling pile of [sorry this is a family friendly blog]. And one last thing. After imposing his own personal opinion of what marriage is upon this country, in contradiction of how most faith traditions understand what marriage is, now he cares about offending people of faith. UPDATE: Political Staples and Paul Wells respond to Martin's desire not to offend. Honouring WFB Next week, William F. Buckley turns 80. NRO has asked friends and family to share some memories and thoughts. I want to highlight four things. Mona Charen recalls that some Soviet officials said something typically stupid and Buckley said, "You know I’ll almost miss them when we win." This was at a time when few people, including conservative hawks, could imagine a world without the USSR. Charen notes: "In Reagan, it was called optimism. But it was more than that. It was a spiritual strength and it was one important though perhaps underappreciated reason Bill Buckley was and is a great leader." Very nice. Very wise. Peter Robinson notes that at a San Francisco dinner recently the conversation was about Buckley's accomplishments. Various ones were proposed: the books, the television show, his hobbies (skiing, sailing, painting and playing the harpsichord (I'm told badly, actually). Milton Friedman interjected: "You’re all wrong ... Bill Buckley’s greatest talent is for friendship." Bill Simon describes that capacity for friendship: "For example, when I announced that I was running for governor of California in 2001, few people took me seriously. Bill did. Even fewer people came to my first fundraiser. Bill did. And the fewest number were those who hung with me after I narrowly lost. Bill did. Indeed, it was during those long weeks, just after losing to the ultimately recalled Gray Davis, that Bill was extraordinarily careful to stay in touch. In his inimitable fashion, Bill would jot short, witty notes and in encouraging phone conversations keep a light touch. Always, always, after hearing from Bill, my day was brighter, and my footsteps had a bit more spring with a quiet appreciative smile." Simon captures what I think makes Buckley so special: "There is no one I have ever met that took himself less seriously while at the same time taking his ideas most seriously." Nordlinger of Saudi PR From Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column: "I’m looking at the back cover of The New Republic. It has an ad from the Saudi government. The slogan is, 'Strong allies. Committed friends.' (That means them and us Americans.) There is a photo, and it shows two young girls, frolicking, having fun, faces to the sun, hair flowing freely. Smart cookies, those Saudi admen: What an image of female Saudihood (or Saudi femalehood) to transmit! I guess they didn’t want to show women covered in black, locked in a room at home, while their husband is having his way with the Filipino maid." For 99.99999% of humanity this is completely useless information Hot Brass has a complete "list of brass players for the London Symphony Orchestra's inspiring soundtrack recordings for the Star Wars series." (HT: Musical Perceptions) Great agri-news website The New Agriculturalist is an excellent source of agri-news and commentary. Okay, immediately upon typing that, I realized how big of a nerd I am. But read the next post to understand what I mean. Snail farming New Agriculturalist On-Line reports that there is a growing snail farming industry in West Africa: "Snail farming can be a very good business in areas where the local market is strong and where, as a result, over collecting from the bush has led to a shortage and boosted prices. Snails fit in well with other farming activities, helping to fertilize the soil prior to cultivation of other crops. And those of unmarketable size can be fed to pigs, shells included. ... Snaileries can vary from a patch of fence-protected ground, sheltered from the wind, to a wooden box or movable pen. Also widely used are trenches or pits which, provided they protect the snails from predators (rats, lizards, centipedes etc.) also work well. Ash, neem or tobacco leaves help to deter natural predators and a site close to the home helps to deter human thieves." As the World Bank's Private Sector Development Blog says, this gives "new meaning to 'micro-enterprise'." Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Quotidian "The boast of the Soviet Union has always been that it is a multinational state in which national antagonisms have all been resolved, and different peoples work co-operatively together for the common goal in peace and equality. Stalin took credit for formulating the Soviet nationalities policy. But neither his formulations nor his treatment of minority cultures can be reconciled with the declared Soviet policy. The very claim that 'Soviet culture is national in form and socialist in content' already indicates that the national element in culture has only a formal and extrinsic place. The form of a free culture develops integrally with its content. To insist in advance that a culture must be socialist in content means to impose norms and directions on the cultural life of a people -- its art, song, folklore, religion, and literature -- instead of leaving them to the spontaneous expression of its carriers. In effect freedom of minority cultures in the Soviet Union has meant little more than freedom to praise Stalin in all languages but Hebrew." -- Sidney Hook, Marx and the Marxists Final five for the World Cup Who's headed to Germany for the 2006 World Cup is all clear now, with Spain, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Trinidad, and Australia qualifying for the final spots today. I am surprised Australia -- the Socceroos -- got by Uruguay (they needed a shootout to do it), but none of the others are surprises. Fifa has good game summaries of the five matches. The group drawings will be December 9. The World Cup itself begins June 9. Support our troops Through the Canadian Coalition for Democracies' Operation Rudolph: "The plan is simple. The Canadian Coalition for Democracies and our generous partners are asking Canadians to make donations that will be spent to purchase a package of Holiday gifts for each soldier in Afghanistan. We are all volunteers, so all of your donation will go to the mission of Operation Rudolph. Each gift package will be accompanied by a letter of appreciation from Canadian students and adults for their efforts in building a democracy. The gift packages will be delivered with the help of the Department of Defence, together with the letters, in a formal ceremony in Afghanistan prior to Christmas 2005." Entertainment prediction Jonathan V. Last says of Brokeback Mountain, a movie about gay cowboys filmed in Calgary last year: "But what do you think the chances are that Brokeback Mountain is the best-reviewed movie of the year, no matter what? If it stinks, would anyone dare say so? And do you maybe get the sense that perhaps many members of the entertainment press doesn't even need to see Brokeback Mountain to figure out what they think?" Gutless priest cancels pro-life conference Father Jean-Pierre Aumont, the rector of St. Joseph's Oratory in Montreal cancelled the national pro-life conference scheduled to be held on the church grounds one day before it was scheduled to start because of opposition from abortion and gay rights activists. Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Morning-after pill politics The Daily Telegraph reports: "Democrats yesterday accused the Bush administration of denying women the morning-after pill because it offends the religious Right." Actually, I think the Food and Drug Administration may have refused to give the MAP the green light because it offends embryonic human beings (by killing them). Either way, it's an obvious sign that Democrats might be onto something when they complain that the United States is becoming a theocracy. (That's sarcasm.) Quotidian "Intellectual serenity in the United States, I have heard it said, consists in not giving a damn about Harvard." -- Joseph Epstein, Narcissus Leaves the Pool: Familiar Essays Martin will focus on governing Okay, you can stop laughing now. Seriously. The Prime Minsiter wants to focus on governing, to deal with the important issues, to do everything he wanted to do in the previous 18 months but couldn't so much as announce until the eve of an election call because ... because ... oh never mind, he's busy governing. In all seriousness, there should be an election because the taint of scandal and the partisan jockeying has taken over this Parliament and it is impossible to get anything done. Even if -- and it's a big if -- the government is serious about the mini budget non-budget they announced yesterday, it appears to be nothing more than electioneering. As J. Kelly Nestruck says: "... this Liberal 'economic update' is exactly why we should go to the polls sooner rather than later. As soon as Gomery dropped his first report -- ie. the one that actually matters in terms of an election -- the campaigning began and any semblance of running the country ended." If the Prime Minister is serious about governing, he would seek a new mandate to do so. Second thoughts I will reconsider my policy of judging people on what they think about the song Let It Snow. The difference an a makes In an interview with the Wall Street Journal that ran on the weekend, William F. Buckley said that President George W. Bush as conservative but not a conservative. Burkean Canuck on the distinction, which BC says is little more than the difference between gut conservatives and movement conservatives. Does it matter? Yes it does, but as the always wise BC concludes, "The winingest coalition will embrace both kinds of conservative." You can tell its nearing an election The Martin government is offering a package of goodies that include personal income tax cuts. The CBC reports that included among the tax cuts and spending initiatives is a $500 increase in the personal exemption and the dropping of the lowest personal income tax rate from 16 to 15%. Remember under Chretien the Liberals dismissed tax cuts as "buying voters"; yes, Martin might be different and may actually believe in tax cuts. Or what might be different is the precarious hold on the power that the Liberals have. Monday, November 14, 2005
And in the beginning there was Buckley Judge Samul Alito credits William F. Buckley with making him a lifelong conservative. That tidbit is found within this Bill Sammon story at the Washington Times which describes a document Alito sent to the Reagan White House when applying for a job in the Solicitor General's office. Specifically, Alito said at the time: "When I first became interested in government and politics during the 1960s, the greatest influences on my views were the writings of William F. Buckley Jr., the National Review, and Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign." Weren't Buckley and NR the greatest influences in many of our lives? Good news from the Middle East Saudi Arabia agreed to end its economic boycott of Israel. Of course, they didn't do this out of the goodness of their hearts. It was a condition for admittance to the WTO. Still, it is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing. Quotidian "Don't talk all the time. It is an error to assume that other people can have nothing interesting to say." -- Edmund Wilson's instructions to himself, The Fifties Dowd's style doesn't translate for effective books Kathryn Harrison has some legitimate criticism for Maureen Dowd's newish book -- new because it is mostly merely an enlargement of her columns on the battle between the sexes -- Are Men Necessary, in a review for the New York Times. Harrison says: "But what makes Dowd an exceptionally good columnist on the Op-Ed page - her ability to compress and juxtapose, her incisiveness, her ear for hypocrisy and eye for the absurd - does not enable her to produce a book-length exploration of a topic as complex as the relations between the sexes. Consumed over a cup of coffee, 800 words provide Dowd the ideal length to call her readers' attention to the ephemera at hand that may reveal larger trends and developments. But smart remarks are reductive and anti-ruminative; not only do they not encourage deeper analysis, they stymie it. Producing one of her trademark staccato repetitions - for example, on cosmetic surgery: 'We no longer have natural selection. We have unnatural selection. Survival of the fittest has been replaced by survival of the fakest. Biology used to be destiny. Now biology's a masquerade party' - Dowd effectively dismisses a subject by virtue of proclamation. Does she let loose three arrows instead of one because she can't choose the cleverest among them? Typically, her formula is to articulate a thesis, punch it up with humor and then follow with anecdotal support or examples taken from TV shows, advertisements, overheard conversations - all cultural detritus is fair game. Often she quotes from reputable sources, CNN or The Times or a professional journal like Science; more often she applies witty asides, snippy comparisons ('Arabs put their women in veils. We put ours in the stocks') and tabloid-style alliteration (e.g., 'dazzling dames' and 'He mused that men are in a muddle')." But that is precisely Dowd's problem. She once wrote a clever column, won a Pulitzer for it and has tried way too hard ever since to ensure every column has five zingers in it. She found a style that pleases some Manhattan liberals and she fell for the conceit that America loves her (at least the part of America that counts). Harrison is only half-right; she is correct to say that Dowd's style doesn't make for a good book. But neither does it work very well for a column. Not the big break blogs were looking for I'm sure that a few people (read: bloggers) will note with glee the fact that Andrew Sullivan's blog is now going to be run by Time.com. They will probably say that it is a recognition of the seriousness and importance of blogs. And to some degree it is. But remember, Sullivan is Mr. Big Time MSM anyway, with regular gigs at a number of places at one time or another including The New Republic, the London Times and Time. While this may bode well for other bloggers in the future -- at least those that seek MSM recognition (validiation?) -- this is mostly a recognition of Sullivan's MSM credentials, not his blogging. Five questions for Muslims From a column by Dennis Prager in the Los Angeles Times this past weekend. Here's the first one with an explanation for the question: "Why are you so quiet? Since the first Israelis were targeted for death by Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up in the name of your religion and Palestinian nationalism, I have been praying to see Muslim demonstrations against these atrocities. Last week's protests in Jordan against the bombings, while welcome, were a rarity. What I have seen more often is mainstream Muslim spokesmen implicitly defending this terror on the grounds that Israel occupies Palestinian lands. We see torture and murder in the name of Allah, but we see no anti-torture and anti-murder demonstrations in the name of Allah. There are a billion Muslims in the world. How is it possible that essentially none have demonstrated against evils perpetrated by Muslims in the name of Islam? This is true even of the millions of Muslims living in free Western societies. What are non-Muslims of goodwill supposed to conclude? When the Israeli government did not stop a Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982, great crowds of Israeli Jews gathered to protest their country's moral failing. Why has there been no comparable public demonstration by Palestinians or other Muslims to morally condemn Palestinian or other Muslim-committed terror? The other questions: "Why are none of the Palestinian terrorists Christian?" "Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?" "Why are so many atrocities committed and threatened by Muslims in the name of Islam?" "Why do countries governed by religious Muslims persecute other religions?" All very good questions but I'm most curious about the first. Of course, Muslims demonstrate against "torture" at Abu Ghraib, but why never against the torture committed by Muslim regimes? Might it have something to do with the fourth question, the one wondering why Muslim-majority countries are not rated free by Freedom House? Just wondering. Further decline of the LAT Ken Masugi notes at the Local Liberty blog that the Los Angeles Times has canned their Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist MFEMFEM Ramirez -- one of the most brilliant and talented editorial cartoonists anywhere. Fortunately, Copley News Service will continue to syndicate them. Also, as part of a sizeable shake-up of their columnist roster, they have dropped David Gelernter. In case anyone thinks this is totally motivated by ideology, the inane MFEMFE Scheer was recently let go, too. On the plus side, Jonah Goldberg has been picked up and they have retained Max Boot. Masugi has more thoughts on the changes and the whole roster in his long post about the seemingly desperate moves to keep the paper ... em, interesting. Wal-Mart and its critics Both sides are trying to co-opt the help of clergy. Wal-Mart Watch prepared a Faith Resource Guide for use in both Catholic and Protestant churches as well as synagogues, highlighting Biblical texts that apparently back-up its case. Wal-Mart is inviting clergy to its headquarters to hear its side of the story and to make the case that it provides jobs (the story doesn't allude to this but Wal-Mart should also note that they help low income workers and the unemployed by providing inexpensive consumer goods). Read about it in the Los Angeles Times. I for one would have a hard time believing Jesus would be chasing Wal-Mart out of town, like liberals are trying to do across America. Sunday, November 13, 2005
Chalabi at AEI Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi's recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute can be seen here. As Chris DeMuth called him, he is one of democratic Iraq's founding fathers, a "patriot, liberal and a liberator." There are many highlights, but to note just a few. He warned that this is not the time to rest because the job is far from done: "Iraq is at the threshold of a new era ... we are not out of the danger. What we do matters." He said that security is possible if Iraqi leaders persuade the government's opponents that they have a stake in the success of the democratic project. While Chalabi said that he hopes the Iraq army and police forces will eventually take over most of the security measures, he reported that no legitimate political leader is calling for the removal of foreign forces; the goal, he said, is the restoration of their own security forces so that foreign troops can leave the cities and return to their military bases. This is significant because Chalabi is implying that there will be a long-term need for foreign military assistance. Looking at the economy, Chalabi expressed concern that there has been no investment in the development of Iraq's oil capacity; he noted the importance of private enterprise in realizing their petroleum potential and the need to introduce some semblance of market pricing for gas prices domestically (which will still be less than 20-cents a litre). He talked about sharing oil revenue with the people as an important divergence from the policies of Saddam Hussein who kept the profits for himself and other high-ranking Baathists. He said that the government will not have the opportunity to loot because the elected assembly will have to okay money transfers. He also makes some comments on the Volcker Report, including noting that the "procedures of corruption" remain in place in the Iraqi bureaucracy. He hopes that the transparency required by having the assembly legitimize spending will change this. He has some strong words for the Arab League which looks at the Iraq government as a foreign-imposed alien power and condemns the fact that they never criticize the terrorist attacks that kill Iraqis. He wonders what the Arab League proposal for a conference for national reconciliation will accomplish: "Who do they want to reconcile: the residents of the mass graves with their murderers?" Powerful stuff. Discussing the ethnic strife, he praised the emerging "politics of participation and sharing" rather than the "politics of monopoly." He eloquently called for respecting human rights and the rule of law. He said that national security is not an excuse to violate the rights of tens of thousands of people. "The way to win against the terrorists in Iraq is to clearly seperate them from the communities in which they hide." The key is to win over the hearts of these communities. He praised the Iraq constitution in terms of women's rights and essential freedoms. He says that "federalism will be a very positive project for unity" when people realize the benefits of the success of the democratic project in Iraq. Welcome news for GOP (if you look way into the future) Florida Governor Jeb Bush has once again ruled out a presidential run in 2008, this time in an interview with a German magazine, Focus. But when asked if he would consider a run at a later date, say 2012, Bush responded: "Let's say there's a vague chance." That assumes, of course, the Republicans don't win in 2008. I still say that Jeb can run and overcome the back-to-back Bush thing if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Quotidian "There is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people." -- Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Sudanese refugees protest UN inaction The latest from the UN-fiddling-while-Sudanese-suffer file, as reported by the Canadian Press: "Leaders of more than 1,000 Sudanese refugees who have been camping in a park for six weeks said Sunday they were starting a hunger strike in protest against the United Nations, accusing the world body of failing to help them. 'We want the UNHCR to look into our problems,' said Bahr-Edin Adam, 28, a refugee from the war-torn Darfur region of west Sudan. 'No UNHCR representative met us, and we don't want to go back to Sudan because the Sudanese government is not interested in us'." Despite not talking to many of the refugees, UN officials dismiss them as economic migrants not legitimate refugees. The refugees' leaders say that they are not economic refugees, that they are not seeking entry into Europe or North America but would return home if it were safe, i.e. if Khartoum would not turn a blind eye to the genocide there. And what was Kofi Annan's response to banners in Cairo, where he was visiting, which said: "Save us Mr. Koffe from the office of UNHCR in Cairo." Nothing. Or pretty much what the UN has been doing with Sudan since news of the first genocide became public several years ago. India's security fence According to the London Times, the 8-foot high, 2,500-mile long security fence between India and Bangladesh will be finished sooner than expected to stave off any Muslim attacks from what some are worrying could become the new Afghanistan. The Times reports that one Bangladeshi opposition leader is concerned about his nation's creeping "Islamicisation," noting: "If you look at state TV, more presenters are wearing beards. On the radio they’re reciting more and more from the Koran. The most notable example is at Dhaka airport where signs are now in Arabic but no one speaks it." Islam, Religion of Peace (c) From WorldNetDaily: "Some 2,000 organized Muslims first vandalized three churches, a nuns' convent, two Catholic schools, the houses of a Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest, a girls' hostel and some Christian homes, according to Asia News. Then they burned them to the ground, while about 450 Christian families fled yesterday. They have not returned." Blairite cronyism The (London) Times reports that Tony Blair is appointing more life peers than his Tory predecessors, Margaret Thatcher and John Major. More importantly, the Times finds that about 10% of the peers are Labour Party donours, collectively contributing nearly £25 million: "An investigation by The Times shows that at least 25 of the 292 peers created by Mr Blair since 1996 have made donations ranging from £6,000 to £13 million. Two of the most generous are now ministers." The paper calls Blair, "the biggest dispenser of political patronage in the Lords since life peerages were created in 1958." Impressively, the article names names and reports the amounts given by each. Recall, too, that Blair criticized Major for appointing party faithful to life peerages. Liberal media in Britain Mark Ravenhill writes in The Guardian that British television is peddling a liberal moralistic vision in their soaps: "There's a tablet of commandments in soap opera ... a set of liberal values. 'Be true to yourself'; 'talk about your feelings'; 'learn to forgive and move on'; 'accept difference'; and 'you're still family even after the murder/arson/substance abuse'. Most of the plots of the soaps are generated when one of the characters strays from these commandments and the others rush around the Street or Square or Village trying to get them back living by these liberal values until - whoops! - another character slips and the game is on again. And again and again. The message is clear: learn these values or be ostracised by your community and banished to panto in Crewe." Ravenhill says this is "odd" because, we're constantly told, "we're living in a morally relativistic age, an age when TV programmers like to scoff at the Rada vowels and patronising tone of previous eras of television." Still, it's clear that television provides a "model of the perfect citizen it wants us to be: a liberal, sensitive, communicative person." So how does Ravenhill deal with this moralistic crusade? He uses the remote control: "There is hope. I watch QVC for several hours a day. On a shopping channel, they don't want to teach you anything. They're just desperate to sell you something, a product that you're never in a million years going to buy - Diamonique ('a branded diamond simulant'), or a Marie Osmond doll. You can sit for hours and just say to the TV: 'No way.' And for once the power is yours and there's no liberal producer, no lesson to be learned and you're totally free of soap, soap, soap." Cameron has momentum David Cameron is claiming that he is not only poised to win the Tory leadership race but that he will unite the Conservative Party behind him and beat the Labour Party. He is uniting the party, it seems. Joining left-leaning Tory MPs Tim Yeo and Alistair Burt in endorsing Cameron (who both announced they were backing him last week) are conservative-leaning MPs Liam Fox and William Hague. It's just sad to see that Tony Blair and not Margaret Thatcher is the model for Tory leadership. World's largest prison According to the latest Cuban census -- and only the third since Fidel Castro's rise to power -- there are 11.4 million residents of the island prison. Friday, November 11, 2005
T-shirts I'm getting my son for Christmas Considering Attila the Hun -- aka Patrick, 15 -- dislikes Che and hates communism, I'm getting him this shirt. He hates hippies, too, but my wife says this one is inappropriate. (Apparently so is this one celebrating diversity.) So instead, he'll get one about the UN. SDA on sexual abuse as a life-ending event Small Dead Animals writes provocatively but truly when in reaction to the over-used line that an act of sexual abuse "ruins the life" of some youngster who experiences it, she says that such descriptions continue to victimize: "A few years ago a friend revealed, almost matter-of-factly, that as a young teenager she had been the victim of a gang rape. She jumped through the counselling hoops of conventional psychological wisdom until the day she realized that she was still wallowing in the event, stretching a brief trauma into an extended one. She decided instead to accept what happened, put it behind her and get on with her life. She never looked back. While not everyone has that type of strength, her story does tell us something. If we want to help victims of sexual crimes regain normalcy, it's time that society and the justice system stop sending mixed messages. We claim there is no shame in being a victim of sexually based crime, then try the cases in courts that "protect" identities and ban publication of testimony. We applaud their courage, then use 'fate worse than' hyperbole equating rape with murder, as though the truly couragous victim would have choosen death over submission. We tell small children that the crime is 'not their fault' - but that their lives are ruined and childhoods at an end, placing before them the additional hurdle of self-fulfilling prophecy. Sexual assault is a heinous, traumatic crime that deserves the full force of the law - additionally so, because of the predatory nature of offenders and the threat they pose to others. It often requires a good deal of medical and emotional support for survivors to recover their health and their lives - but this is also true of drunk driving victims, those who survive beatings or robbery, survivors of spousal abuse - all of whom we expect to pick up the pieces and move on. Elevating the victim of sex crime to special status as the ruined perpetual 'survivor' may be as damaging a societal response - perhaps more so - than that of 50 years ago, when they were told to shut up and get on with their lives in silence." Thursday, November 10, 2005
Quotidian "Although it was not the chief reason I went to school there, the University of Chicago permitted smoking in classrooms, which I thought a fine thing. Students and professors both smoked away -- so much so that, in the context of of the seriousness of the university, smoking almost came to be seen an intellectual gesture." -- Joseph Epstein, A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays Andrea Yates gets the second chance her children never had AP reports: "The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused Wednesday to reconsider a lower court's decision to overturn Andrea Yates capital murder convictions for drowning her children in a bathtub in 2001. Harris County Assistant District Attorney Alan Curry said the case would be retried or a plea bargain considered. Jurors rejected Yates insanity defense in 2002 and found her guilty of two capital murder charges for the deaths of three of her five children." As The Musings of Justine states: "I'm sure that post-partum depression is real, but it is still no excuse to murder your children (or anybody else's children). I also do not believe in psychologically treating murderers -- seems like a smoke screen and another way for society to blur the lines between right and wrong ... If Psycho Yates were really a 'victim' of post-partum depression, then she should have no need for a stay in the looney bin -- i.e. if her hormones made her do it, then those should (four and a half years after her unspeakable crime) be calmed down by now. Do not give her any meds to cloud her memory -- simply lock her away with a clear mind for the rest of her life to contemplate the young lives she brutally took. Have you ever read a re-telling of the way she ruthlessly drowned them? Her oldest child, Noah, having seen his younger siblings drowned, tried to run from her, and then she collared him and forced him face down in the bathtub -- filled with the other children's feces and vomit. And yet he still struggled to come up for air and said, 'I'm sorry Mommy,' before she forced his head down again. Can you imagine the terror that encompassed that poor little boy's last moments on earth? Can you imagine calling a cold-blooded killer such as she merely a 'caring mother suffering from post-partum depression'? And I am really sick of people out there blaming Mr. Yates as much or even more for his children's murders as Psycho Yates. Since when is a poor guy's going to work everyday to support his wife and children with shelter, food, and clothing such a condemnable act? Only in some sort of warped, alternate, man-hating reality where men can do nothing right -- ever. If women are such amazing, brilliant, strong, rational, independent creatures, then why do so many feminists immediately blame the closest man around when a woman does something unbelievably evil? Funny how women love to be victims when it suits them." For more information about the case, see Court TV's Crime Library. My Friday I'll be at Crossroads in Burlington taping for Sunday night's Behind the Story. We're discussing the riots in Europe and the election in Canada. Then I'll be part of a panel discussion at the ECP Center's Townhall Meeting on Christians "taking off the gloves" in the culture war. So watch the show on Sunday and come out to the panel discussions (they're free!) on Friday. Freedom leads to happier lives Three European researchers have found that limiting state "interventions in the economy" will give individuals "a high degree of personal freedom" and thus "life satisfaction." (HT: No Left Turns) Napoleon was right It's the demography, stupid. Mark Steyn writes about the flames of Eurabia in The Spectator: "For the political class, the demography’s becoming an insurmountable obstacle. When your electorate’s split between a young implacable ethnic group and elderly French natives unwilling to vote themselves off their unaffordable social programmes, there aren’t a lot of options your average poll-watching pol will be willing to take. And the trouble with the social democratic state is that, when government does too much, nobody else does much of anything. At the very least, European citizens should recognise that the governing class has failed, that the conventional wisdom has run its course, and that it is highly unlikely that those culturally confident Muslims will wish to assimilate with anything as shrivelled and barren as contemporary European identity. Donald Rumsfeld, a man confined to the enclosures of thought, likes to say that weakness is a provocation. And for the last two weeks that’s all the French state has projected." Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Are they really that bad? The University of Indiana's Professor Frank Samarotto's list of "bad dissertation titles" that no music student at the university should ever write: "Top-Ten Bad Dissertation Titles List 1. Uncertainty in Music: A Definitive Survey 2. The Catalan Influence on the French Augmented Sixth Chord in the Music of Engelbert Humperdinck 3. The Voicing of the Final Chord in Music of the Classical Period 4. A Syncategorematically Recursive Hedra-Lattice of Poly-PC Postponement: A Theory of Atonal Silence 5. Heinrich Schenker: Threat or Menace? 6. Prolonging the Agony: A Schenkerian Approach to Muzak in the Dentist's Office 7. 'Where Are All My Favorite Notes?' A Statistical Tabulation of Every Pitch-Class in the Serial Music of Webern 8. A Violist Walked into a Barline: Rhythm and Meter in the Structure of Viola Jokes 9.Three Times a Lady: Triple Counterpoint in the Music of Britney Spears 10. The Whole Step: Our Misunderstood Friend" Number 4 is agonizingly awful but the others? Perhaps they do not inspire the same horror because I can't honestly believe any music student would explore such themes but can see such a theorist delving into "Syncategorematically Recursive Hedra-Lattice of Poly-PC Postponement: A Theory of Atonal Silence." (HT: Musical Perceptions) This is interesting A Catholic priest may have fathered a child with a woman -- Jane Doe in the story but her real name is Sandra Ring, a fact reported by the Toronto Star in covering this story -- who is now suing him for child and spousal support. What's neat, at least for me, is that both Friar Jason Martin and Ms. Ring were a grade behind me at St. Mary's High School in Woodstock, Ont. Obviously our religion teachers didn't do a great job. I also find it interesting that Survivors Network Of Those Abused By Priests is involved in the case. Ms. Ring according to all the accounts was a willing participant and the two were even reportedly engaged. More background: they were romantically involved in high school for a year before he went on to become a friar with the Order of Discalced Carmelite Friars in Chicago, and she married another man. In 2003 the two became involved again when her marriage broke down. So again I ask: how is she a victim of abuse? If the allegations are true -- and Martin concedes he had a sexual relationship with Ring although he denies the child is his -- the not-so-good friar broke his vow of celibacy and acted entirely inappropriately. But that's not abuse. Mr. Chalabi heads to Washington Adam Daifallah, as always, is the best blogger on Ahmad Chalabi: "Few politicians have been the target of as much ridicule and derision as Ahmad Chalabi. The Iraqi democrat, who has given his life to the cause of a free Iraq, is the enemy of the tyrants who rule the Arab lands, leftwing academics and journalists and other defenders of the Middle East status quo, and for the last couple of years, high-ranking officials of the U.S. government." Thankfully, top Bush administration officials (Condi, Rummy) met Chalabi and all seems to be well. It is a shame that he was so poorly treated, at times outright villianized, by CIA and State Department officials and even members of the Bush administration. Laurie Mylroie wrote in the New York Sun (behind a subscriber wall) yesterday about Chalabi and gave a starkly different picture of the man demonized by the MSM media: "One of America's most distinguished and knowledgeable Middle East scholars, Fouad Ajami, spent three weeks in Iraq last summer in Mr. Chalabi's company. Mr. Ajami's experience left him convinced that Mr. Chalabi represents Iraq's most capable politician, an unusually effective figure, a man of action, deeply rooted in the country, who bonds with ordinary Iraqis, even as he discourses knowledgeably on Shi'a history and jurisprudence with Iraq's leading religious figures, including Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Mr. Chalabi and those around him, including the ministers of defense, finance, and oil, represent the "center of gravity" of Iraq's government. In an interview with this author, Mr. Ajami described a meeting in Sadr City, the huge, volatile Shi'a slum in Baghdad. The local political leadership gathered to meet with American military officers. The Iraqis naively believed that the commanders could grant "sovereignty" to Sadr City, and they were set to become angry if their request was denied. Mr. Chalabi defused the tensions, explaining that no American officer had the power to grant them sovereignty. The National Assembly had to negotiate a "status-of-forces" agreement with Washington. Mr. Chalabi also reminded them that without America, there would be no liberty in Iraq, and they would not be holding this meeting, even as he also stated that Americans needed to understand and come to terms with the aspirations of the people of Sadr City. The Sadr City leadership expected to receive $380 million from the Iraqi government. Mr. Chalabi could have pandered, Mr. Ajami observes, and left the impression they would receive such funds. Yet Mr. Chalabi explained that the Iraqi government did not have that kind of money. Mr. Chalabi is prepared to tell people what they don't want to hear. At the tomb of the Imam Ali in Najaf, Mr. Chalabi excused himself to pray at the grave of his grandfather, who is buried on the grounds of the shrine. The overseer of the shrine extended an unusual invitation to lunch. As Mr. Ajami remarks, Chalabi is "deeply-rooted" in Shi'a tradition, in a way that Ayad Allawi, the favored candidate of the Arabists in the American and British bureaucracies and in the Arab states surrounding Iraq, can never be." He is, as Mylroie says elsewhere in teh column, precisely the kind of partner that America and the West need in the Iraqi leadership. GOP looking like they're in trouble in '06 Larry Kudlow says that after yesterday's gubernatorial and mayoral Democratic victories (NYC's Michael Bloomberg doesn't count) and considering the rumours that the Democrats are considering their own Contract with America (i.e. they are finally getting serious about policy), the Republicans are beginning to look vulnerable in next year's midterm elections: "Republican pundits who try to downplay these elections are just plain wrong. While Democrats still have to craft a coherent message, and their glee may yet be premature, the message is clear: It’s time to get serious here. This is a Republican problem." The GOP can't really afford to wait around and hope the Democrats go all Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan/Howard Dean on them and self-destruct. The Dems still might do that but for the first time since 2000, the party is looking like a serious (opposition) party. Quotidian "The point is that a cadre party operating in a federal system is particularly vulnerable in an organizational sense to the loss of office, not only because the fruits of power are useful resources for party organization but also because the party lacks a firm and loyal class basis of support in the electorate." -- Reginald Whitaker, The Government Party: Organizing and Financing the Liberal Party of Canada, 1930-58 Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Iranian peace plan From Reuters: "Iran, whose president has called for Israel's destruction, said on Monday it will submit a proposal to the United Nations for a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. ... President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called in a speech last month or Israel to be "wiped off the map," sparking international condemnation and Israeli calls for Iran to be thrown out of the United Nations. Iranian officials have said his remarks were merely a re-statement of the Islamic state's pro-Palestinian policy and did not represent an actual threat of violence against Israel. 'To restore peace in the Middle East, Iran will submit a proposal to the U.N. based on what the Supreme Leader has said,' Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a conference on Central Asia in Tehran." Of course, Ahmadinejad's threat to eliminate Israel and his desire for peace and not incompatible: no Israel, no conflict, right? On a more serious note, I don't think that Ahmadinejad has the moral authority to be suggesting peace plans. Religion blogs Joseph Bottum gives First Things readers the heads up on what's coming in December, including Jonathan V. Last's article, "God on the Internet." Bottum says: "Not to give the ending away, but his concluding advice for religious bloggers is 'Shut off your computer. Take a deep breath. Go to church'." Of course, he says this in the confines of the First Things blog. Tory horse race The London Times reports that according to the latest poll of Conservative Party members, David Davis is leading David Cameron, 50%-37%. That's certainly good news. Required reading on the French (read: Muslim) riots Over at the Ashbrook Center, John von Heyking warns about the inability to integrate Muslims, finding the European approach (big government) not quite up to the task. Writing in the New York Sun, Daniel Pipes warns that the French will not heed the riots as the warning signs for the clash of civilization that they are. Hugh Hewitt interviewed Victor Davis Hanson and VDH encapsulates what's wrong with Europe and why is it susceptible to Islamic revolt: "VDH: Well, there's two messages. One, that we in America can see where an unassimilated un-integrated a population goes, and where that leads to, it leads to a sort of an apartheid. And two, we can see what happens with an EU that can't create real economic growth, and has high stagnant unemployment of 10%. And three, this is I think a little bit more controversial, that we can see what happens to a society that doesn't ask the immigrant to integrate, and the immigrant doesn't feel that he has to integrate, or to learn the language, or learn the traditions of the West. So you have this Orwellian situation when thousands of people are rioting, you want to say let me get this straight. You do not want to go back to the country, an hour or two away by air, that you praise in the abstract, but you surely want to stay in a country that you want to burn down to the concrete. It doesn't make any sense, other than this strong, psychological urges of envy, jealousy, wanting something you can't have. Then, besides all that landscape, you get the impression there's something very wrong in Europe that has high unemployement and generous joblessness benefits, so that it allows people not really to have to go look for a job, because there isn't any, but to stay home and sort of nurse these wounds, with enough money to survive." Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that the riots are affecting the Euro as investors worry that France (and other countries) will respond with the same old big government policies Europe always responds to problem with: "David Brown, European economist at Bear Stearns, said the unrest in France highlighted similar economic problems for eurozone governments. 'France is coming under the microscope at a time when you’ve got rampant unemployment in all three eurozone major economies,' he said. 'If the French don’t combat this in a decisive way – maybe they do a u-turn on public spending and spending rises at a time when they need to control it – those same problems could spill over elsewhere'." A brief history of Islam Borrowing from The Timetables of History (3rd edition), Warwick provides a useful history of Islam's early years, from its founding: 622 - Mohammed's Flight from Mecca to Medina. Year 1 in the Muslim calendar 624 - Mohammed marries the 10-year old daughter of Abu Bekr 625 - Mohammed begins to dictate the Koran 627 - Mohammed's enemies from Mecca besiege Medina and slaughter 700 Jews - Persians decisively defeated by the Byzantines at Nineveh 628 - Mohammed captures Mecca and writes letters to all the rulers of the world, explaining the principles of the Muslim faith 632 - Mohammed dies, Medina becomes the seat of the first Caliph, Abu Dekr, who succeeds his son-in-law Mohammed 633 - Arabs Attack Persia, Spain falls to the Visigoths, loss of the Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria to Islam (although not the government, yet.) 634 - Muslims conquer Syria, Persia and Egypt 635 - Damascus becomes the capital of the caliphs, Muslims capture Gaza 637 - Jerusalem conquered by the Arabs 638 - Persia appeals to China for help against Muslims 639 - Arabs attack Armenia 640 - Arabs find the Library at Alexandria with its 300,000 papyrus scrolls 641 - The Arabs under Omar destroy the Persian empire; the caliphs rule the country till 1258;Islam replaces the religion of Zoroaster - The book-copying industry at Alexandria destroyed by the Arabs; end of the Alexandrian school, the center of Western culture 642 - Eastern Roman Empire is considerably weakened by the Arab conquest of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Syria 643 - Muslims conquer Tripoli 646 - Byzantine fleet recaptures Alexandria 649 - Arabs conquer Cyprus 650 - Caliph Othman puts Mohammed's teachings into 114 chapters 652 - Aswan agreed upon with Nubians as southern limit of Arab expansion 655 - Muslim fleet destroys Byzantine fleet at Lycia 670 - Arabs attack in North Africa 693 - Arabs defeat Justinian II at Sebastopolis, Cilicia 694 - Arabs overrun Armenia 697 - Arabs destroy Carthage 700 - Arabs conquer Algiers - Christianity in N. Africa almost exterminated 711 - Arab General Tarik defeats King Roderic at Zeres de la Frontera, and Spain, with the exception of Asturias, becomes and Arab state 712 - Arabs occupy Samarkand and make it a center of Islamic culture; here they learn the art of making paper - Seville conquered by the Arabs - Muslim state established in Sind (India) by Muhammad ibn Kasim 715 - Muslim empire extends from the Pyrenees to China, with Damascus as its capital 716 - Arabs conquer Lisbon 718 - Leo III, defends Constantinople for 13 months against the Arabs and destroys their fleet 720 -Muslims settle in Sardinia; their army crosses the Pyrenees into France, seizing Narbonne 725 - While the Arabs ravage southern France, Charles Martel crosses the Rhine and conquers Bavaria 732 - Charesl Martel's victory over the Arabs in the Battle of Tours and Poitiers stems the tide of their westward advance 745 - The Emperor Constantine V defeats the Arabs 748 - Arab fleet destroyed during an attack on Cyprus 759 - Franks get Narbonne back from the Arabs 760 - Founding of Turkish Empire by a Tartar tribe in Armenia 763 - Caliph al-Mansur moves his capital from Damascus to Baghdad 795 - Revolts in Egypt Remember this when people talk about the religion of peace (c). Great idea In the comment section at The Shotgun, Bart F. has posted an ingenious idea: "Perhaps the Western Standard should institute an annual 'Pamela Wallin Award' for excellency in LPC journalistic sycophancy. I picked Pamela because she even brags about it: http://www.pamelawallin.com/ Criteria could include frequency of half truths, misleading headline impact, mixing editorialising with reporting, and, of course, the general quality of the resulting Liberal patronage sinecure." Cam Neely in the Hall of Fame Boston Bruins right-winger Cam Neely is one of the finest hockey players -- both on and off the ice -- and is now deservedly in the Hockey Hall of Fame. His 344 goals (fifth on the all-time Bruin list) is impressive, especially considering that hip and knee injuries shortened his career. He retired at the age of 31. But Neely was no one dimensional player; check out this collection of his "greatest hits" from BroadStreetBully.com. Steyn on Eurabia One cannot distill Mark Steyn's Daily Telegraph column to an essential sentence, paragraph or even couple paragraphs. Read it all, here. Exceptionally brilliant, even for Steyn. The air is out of the post-Gomery bounce Political Staples notes that the Liberals are back in the lead (35% for the Liberals, 28% for the Tories). All is well in Canada. Or at least back to normal. Unusually wise candour from French pol French politicans often speak their mind, but it usually betrays incredible idiocy. But not this time. The Scotsman reports that Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Le Parisien: "I speak with real words ... When you fire real bullets at police, you’re not a 'youth,' you’re a thug." (HT: Jay Currie) Things that make you go Hmmm In a post about MRIs on wheels, Adam Taylor at the CTF's blog notes: "Interesting to note that one of the main points of the Canada Health Act is accessibility, yet Canada has some of the longest wait times for health care services in the world." Three columns in LAT on the UN The Los Angeles Times ran three columns on the United Nations on Sunday, each worth reading. The first, by UN critic Joshua Muravchik, finds that the root of the problem to be the lack of accountability, fueled by the "inbred, cosseted (by diplomatic immunity) and opaque U.N. bureaucracy" where "Jobs are filled by nationality, not merit." How to fix the UN? "The remedy for U.N. misfeasance is transparency and accountability, but it is difficult to see how the world body will ever achieve these. In a democratic polity, they are hard-won goals. Their realization depends less on formal rules than on the self-interest of opposition parties to search out and reveal incumbent misbehavior. But there is no opposition in the United Nations. The system is based on diplomatic give-and-take, which rewards indifference rather than integrity... ...This mutual back-scratching leads not only to petty villainy and abuses of power, it also compromises the U.N.'s most sacred goals — the advancement of human rights, for one. Members of the U.N.'s Commission on Human Rights have included the world's most repressive regimes, and — no surprise — it rarely has criticized any of them. How is it that China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Sudan get elected to this body? The answer: vote trading. And it is doubtful the results will be any different when a smaller human rights council replaces the commission, the latest reform aimed at ending this disgrace. Governments tend to be cynical; a club of 191 of them is bound to be utterly cynical. The oil-for-food scandal will stimulate a new round of reform. But the U.N. that will emerge is unlikely to escape corruption and hypocrisy or, more important, be faithful to its founding purposes." Another isn't really a column but excerpts from Broken Promises, The United Nations at 60, produced by actor Ron Silver and Citizens United Foundation president David N. Bossie. They outline the UN failure to act in Rwanda and Bosnia, its support for human rights abusers and anti-Israel bias. The LAT piece and documentary's conclusion "Silver: 'The regrettable conclusion is that in its most crucial promises, to protect human rights and protect peace and security, the U.N. has failed. The very nature of the world body is that any nation with a flag has a seat at the table.' [Jed] Babbin, [former deputy undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush]: 'The rogues and terrorist and despots and dictators who run the show are not going to give up control. And they outvote us, they can veto things. You can't fix the U.N. because its members don't want it to be fixed'." Lastly, former LAT UN correspondent Stanley Meisler writes that the UN does enough good that it deserves another chance if only it can be tweaked to work better. But you can guess what's coming when Meisler begins with this non sequitur: "I do not doubt that the U.N. needs reform — just look at the scandal in the U.N.'s oil-for-food program for Iraq. But let's put this into perspective. Many institutions and processes need reform. The electoral college needs reform. So does the U.S. system of casting and counting votes. So do many American corporations and, according to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the U.S. Senate. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tells us that the U.S. military needs reform. And everyone seems to agree that American public schools need reform." All the calls for reform result in a presumably mistaken image "of the U.N. as corrupt, slovenly, wasteful and anti-American." Well, yes. But what many critics see as corrupt, slovenly and wasteful, Meisler sees as glorious: "[One] fact hardly ever mentioned by critics is that the wonderful diversity of the U.N. does not necessarily lend itself to efficiency. The U.N. has 191 member states and six official languages. Civil servants come from an incredible variety of cultures. To avoid misunderstanding, they must show great sensitivity toward each other. Israelis and Egyptians, for example, work together to guard the secretary-general. French and Japanese struggle together to find the proper English wording of a press release. That may slow things up a bit, but it is one of the glories of the U.N." Meisler goes onto to complain that when the UN's critics call for reform, they are disingenuous because they don't really care for the institution and would rather punish it or show contempt for the organization. He may have a point. But one wonders how serious his tepid endorsement of Kofi Annan's third round of reform (the Secretary General is the subject of a forthcoming Meisler biography) really is. After all, perhaps Meisler has a hidden agenda -- one that might appear to be reforming the UN all the while keeping its dysfunctional glories. Manji on the decline of Islam Irshad Manji in the Los Angeles Times: "This concept of creative reasoning, pronounced ij-tee-had, has a track record. In the early decades of Islam, thanks to the spirit of ijtihad, 135 schools of thought flourished. In Muslim Spain, scholars would teach their students to abandon "expert" opinions about the Koran if their own conversations with the ambiguous book produced more compelling evidence for their peaceful ideas. And Cordoba, among the most sophisticated cities in Islamic Spain, had 70 libraries. That is one for every virgin that today's Muslim martyrs believe Allah pledges them. Books then, women now: an unlikely indicator of how far Muslims have plunged intellectually." Methinks Manji exaggerates when she claims that between the 8th and 12th centuries, when "the gates of ijtihad" allegedly dominated Islamic thought, "Islamic civilization led the world in ingenuity," but her point is well taken: those who speak for Islam confound faith and dogma. Monday, November 07, 2005
Quotidian "A parent must develop a way of smiling at a child, perhaps with narrowed eyes, or a way of holding the child's wrist, which conveys to the child that he is storing up serious trouble." -- Miss Manners (Judith Martin), Miss Manners' Guide to Excrutiatingly Correct Behavior Celebs endorse Prop 73 Several celebrities are endorsing Proposition 73, a ballot initiave that, if passed, would require parental notification (notification -- not consent) for minor-aged girls seeking an abortion. Hear Ben Stein's radio ad here. Or Laura Ingraham. Or Dr. Laura. Or read Patricia Heaton's endorsement. Bush must fight for his comeback The Weekly Standard's William Kristol maps out a strategy for the White House to revitalize the rest of the Bush term: "Keeping Rove; being unapologetic about the war; explaining why Saddam had to be removed, that there were terror ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, and why the war needs to be seen through to victory; fighting for Alito, and other well-qualified conservative judges at the appellate level; advancing pro-growth, pro-family tax reforms--this agenda won't enamor Bush to liberals. But it could lay the groundwork for a Bush comeback. The alternative is three long years of ducking, dodging--and defeat." That's the conclusion; the rest of the column explains why. But Karl Rove is the key. From the 'I'm having second thoughts about the Tories' file Girl on the Right notes the latest depressing Liberal-Lite moment that the Conservative [sic] Party of Canada is having all too often nowadays: "Next Sunday you will find members of Toronto's CPC in Young Dundas Square, at an anti-gun rally. I will not be there. I do not believe in banning guns - no matter how popular that idea may be in Toronto right now. I believe instead in banning criminals. I'm funny that way. But the aptly-named John Tory, Jim Flaherty, Peter Kent and others will be there. Walking hand in hand with members of the NDP, and handing out daisies, no doubt. They see it as an excellent PR move. Except for one small problem: The CPC isn't supposed to want to ban guns. If they did, they would have been thrown out of Calgary a long time ago. I mentioned attending a Town Hall about safer streets in Toronto the other night, hosted by local conservative candidate Jurij Klufas, with Axel Kuhn and John Cappobianco. Jim Flaherty was there. Michael Mostyn was there. Eugene McDermid was there. Sam Goldstein of Trinity-Spadina (home of Olivia Chow) was there, and all but broke into a few bars of Give Peace a Chance. Five more minutes of listening to Sam tell us about how expensive it would be to have to build more jails, and how the cause of crime is poverty blah blah (did I mention Sam is a defence attorney??), and I wouldn't have been surprised if Al Sharpton had burst in trailing the Harlem Globetrotters and extolling the virtues of afterschool programs." I'm sure the party's long-time supporters in rural Saskatchewan will be pleased with this news. For that matter, the party's core supporters in rural southwestern Ontario. I guess their bronze-plated votes aren't as important as the gold-plated votes of Torontonians. Birds of a feather The Jerusalem Post reports: "The armed wing of the ruling Fatah party, Aksa Martyrs Brigades, on Sunday became the first Palestinian group to publicly endorse Iran's call to eliminate Israel. In a leaflet distributed in the Gaza Strip, the group voiced full support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements in which he said that Israel 'must be wiped off the map.' ... The leaflet by the Fatah group is the first of its kind since the Iranian president's speech. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are believed to be receiving financial aid from Iran, have refrained from reacting to the call to wipe Israel off the map. 'We affirm our support and backing for the positions of the Iranian president toward the Zionist state which, by God's will, will cease to exist," said the leaflet. "Recognizing Israel's right to exist means underestimating the Palestinian people, who are making daily sacrifices to liberate Palestine and Jerusalem.' The Fatah group also hailed Ahamdinejad's appeal to the Palestinians to unite their ranks so they would be able to destroy Israel. Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah told the Jerusalem Post that the leaflet does not reflect the stance of the PA or its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas. "We strongly condemn the leaflet," said one official. 'We believe it does not even reflect the position of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades'." The Last Amazon asks: "All of which begs the question just who is running the Palestinian Authority?" The better question is this: "Why is the Palestinian Authority in the process of incorporating hundreds of gunmen from the Aksa Martyrs Brigades into the PA security forces? Or better yet: Why does the United States and Israel support the PA's plan to do so? Reagan (mis)remembered The Union-Leader editorial on Ronald Reagan's 25th anniverary of coming to power says that many Republicans have squandered his legacy and used an example the profligate spending of the GOP Congress. Nice try. Reagan may have been a great leader, may have returned America to greatness and certainly won World War III, but a restrained spender he was not. While conservatives like to claim that non-defense discretionary spending grew because of the Democratic Congress, George F. Will was fond of pointing out (at the time) that 12/13ths of the budget deficit was proposed by the Reagan administration. You can't blame the Democrats for that. Reagan may have talked the small government talk but he never walked the small government walk. In his eight years as Governor of California, the state budget increased 120% and 34,000 new state employees were added to the public payroll. He railed against big government at the same time that he presided over its growth. Here's a pop quiz: name one specific program that candidate Ronald Reagan promised to cut when he was running for president in 1980? You can't because he didn't. I'm not criticizing Reagan -- the president who saw a threefold increase in the projected budget deficit from President Jimmy Carter's last year to Reagan's third year; I'm just helping set the record straight. Reagan provided bold leadership when America was suffering from "malaise" and when it appeared it was losing the Cold War. Unfortunately, he did not practice that same bold leadership on holding down government spending. He may have been a conservative hero but in practice he was no fiscal conservative. Best commentary on the French riots Richard Reeb at the Claremont Institute's The Remedy: "We are seeing in a single crisis all the defects of the French regime (not to mention others of Old Europe) that are leading to the disintegration of their society. It turns out that the American policy of assimilation of legal immigrants, based on a citizenship of principle, is far wiser than non-assimilation, based on a citizenship of blood. Whereas Americans protected religious freedom and separated church and state (while most clung to their ancient faith), the Europeans did more--they abandoned their faith and believe in nothing but their own self interest. That turns out to be inconsistent with the public interest, which requires purportedly free nations to accord to their legal immigrants the same privileges and immunities as their native citizens, not to mention to appreciate that dreaded "abstract doctrine" of equal rights that animated the American Revolution, led to the founding of free republican governments, and to the end of slavery and legal segregation. If we Americans have got more work to do to end the drug-like dependency of millions on the administrative state, race-based policy and abortion of unborn children, the Europeans need first to get on the right path toward the solution to their problems. One only hopes that peoples who cannot even replace themselves with new generations of children have not completely lost faith in their ability to govern themselves altogether. We are not talking merely about Europeans being intimidated by noisy, angry and violent racial and religious minorities. We are talking about the impending end of European republics and their replacement by Muslim regimes. This is not only not in their interest, to say the very least, it is not in the American interest either. All the more reason for our policy of regime change to succeed in the Middle East, so that we don't have to resort to the same project once again in Europe." Ahamdinejad's first 100 days Amir Taheri looks at Iranian president Mahmoud Ahamdinejad's first one hundred days. After examining the domestic politics of the June election fallout, Taheri turns to how Ahmadinejad conducts himself: "Ahmadinejad has also changed the Islamic Republic’s international profile. Unlike Rafsanjani and Khatami who spoke one way inside Iran and another way outside, Ahmadinejad uses the same discourse everywhere. He addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly in the same way he addresses a gathering of Jihadists in a suicide-bomber training camp in Tehran. Unlike Rafsanjani who talked of business and trade, Ahmadinejad speaks of struggle and sacrifice. Unlike Khatami who spoke of Descartes and Hegel to impress the West, Ahmadinejad speaks of the revolutionaries of classical Islam such as Abazar al-Ghaffari and, of course, Imam Hussein. Unlike Rafsanjani and Khatami who tried to redefine Islam in a way as to please the modern world, a world that is shaped and dominated by Western ideas, Ahmadinejad is trying to revive the purest definition of the faith and asserts that Islam is an alternative to the current global system and not a candidate for becoming a small part of it. Ahmadinejad’s radical discourse has also confused the fake Islamists who send their children to study at Western universities but who insist that the children of the poor should attend Koranic schools only. Those who have tried to build a life on the basis of a little bit of Islam and a little bit of Western modernism are made uncomfortable by Ahmadinejad who is forcing everyone to take sides. What Ahmadinejad is saying is simple: one cannot be half pregnant, either you are or you are not." Now, it should be a welcome development that Ahmadinejad says the same things at home and abroad but I would guess that many western diplomats prefered to play "pretend" -- pretend that Iran is not the threat to the west that the mullahs and other jihadists would seem to be as long as their international face was not so ... well, revolutionary, Islamist and, em, threatening. Taheri says that Ahmadinejad sees a future clash of civilizations, one in which Islam will be the winner. It's too bad that western diplomats -- and more importantly, western leaders -- don't realize that the clash of civilizations won't be averted by a game of "let's pretend it doesn't exist." (HT: Winds of Change) Sunday, November 06, 2005
Bolton trashes UN John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN and one of heroes, has said that nobody at Turtle Bay is taking the Volcker report on the oil-for-food scandal seriously. It is worth reading the whole Sunday Telegraph story but consider this conclusion, a direct quote from Bolton: "It's hard to see the idealism of the founders in the actions of the UN today." Perhaps that is because the international organization is too political, seen, as Bolton diagnoses, a "counter-balance" to the United States. Does the British Tory leadership race matter? The Sunday Telegraph reports that regardless of wins the Conservative Party leadership, Gordon Brown will win the next general election. An ICM polls has Brown beating a David Davis-led Tory party 41-33 with the Liberal Democrats garnering 18% of the vote. A David Cameron-led Tory party would lose 41-34 with 16% going for the Lib Dems. So much for the Cameron-the-modernizer being more electable. Also tucked away in the article is the rumour that David Willets will bolt the Davis camp to endorse Cameron. British lefty says no to Kyoto targets The Independent reports that Gordon Brown is among the senior cabinet ministers calling on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to scrap its target of cutting CO2 emissions by 20% by 2010 even though it was a promise the party made in its election manifesto just six months ago. The 20% cut is necessary to reach the Kyoto mandate to reach their sub-1990 level. While I appreciate Brown's honesty that it will be difficult if not impossible to meet the target it would have been nice for Brits to have known this while the party was running around promising they would do it. Ten days after rioting begins ... French President Jacques Chirac says it is time to do something. Arresting the criminals might be one idea although the AP reports that, "Jean-Marie Huet, a senior Justice Ministry official, said 160 people had been brought before the courts since the unrest started. Around 20 had been jailed, 30 others released on bail, and 50 minors had been brought before juvenile courts." Well, I'm sure that will signal that France will not longer put up with the destructive violence. The AP also is positive about who is to blame: French society and its government for not doing enough for its "minority" (read: Islamic) population: "Rioting began 10 days ago with the accidental electrocution of two youths apparently fleeing police. Their deaths ignited frustration among ethnic minorities over racism, unemployment, police treatment and their marginal place in French society." Perhaps having more basketball programs for underpriviledged youth will do the trick. Toronto could send David Miller to coach the young hoodlums to throw basketballs instead of Molotov cocktails. Books for Christian college students Hugh Hewitt asks, "Please recommend the five books you would have a Christian college student read who was interested in deepening his or her faith but who also had all the time constraints and background education of most college kids today. (In other words, no Summa Theologica or Institutes)," at his OneTrueGodBlog.com. Mark D. Roberts cheats and offers six suggetions (The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith, both by Lee Strobel, Why I Am a Christian by John Stott, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, The Challenge of Jesus, by N. T. Wright and Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. David Allen White responds with Plato's "Phaedo" Dialogue ("On the Immortality of the Soul") and Aristotle's "De Anima" ("On the Soul") -- cheating because he offers them as one suggestion, in tandem -- as well as Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ, Dante's The Divine Comedy (which, as DAW notes is the Summa Theologica "slipped it in, disguised"), Shakespeare's "King Lear," and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karmazov. David Allen White then also cheats and offers Augustine's City of God and Cervantes Don Quixote, Pascal's Pensees, and Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago. Ahem. I think that DAW broke Hewitt's rule to consider students' "time constraints and background education," and thus made a serious mistake in including Dante, Dostoevsky and all his extra reading. Not that they are bad books but that they are the writings that are quite frankly beyond the average college student. Les Miserables is different because due to the broadway production, it has penetrated the pop culture and is thus (more) within the average student's capabilties. I don't think you can go wrong with The Case for Christ, The Case for Faith, Why I Am a Christian and Mere Christianity. They are short, easy-to-read and intelligible. In that spirit let me offer one book for Christian college students and four books specifically for Catholic college students (or those interested in learning about Catholicism). All Christians will benefit from reading Peter Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life which explores what Ecclesiastes, Job and Song of Songs has to teach us about vanity, suffering and life as love, respectively. For Catholics or those curious about their beliefs, I suggest Michael and Janna Novak's Tell Me Why: A Father Answers His Daughters Questions About God, George Weigel's The Truth of Catholicism: Ten Controversies Explored and Letters to a Young Catholic (that latter which beautifully explores Catholic teaching and history by using specific locations and their history to delve into significant moral and theological teachings), and Peter Kreeft's Catholic Christianity: A Complete Catechism of Catholic Beliefs Based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which neatly explains the sacraments and prayers Catholics practice and proclaim). For the faithful Catholic looking to deepen their relationship with God, I would suggest Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life and Fr. Jonathan Robinson's Spiritual Combat Revisited (which revitalizes the almost impossible to find and largely incomprehensible Spiritual Combat by Lorenzo Scupoli). Rescuing Canada's Right You have ordered Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin's Rescuing Canada's Right, right? You can do so here. Refuting Krugman without words EU Rota refutes the latest idiocy from Paul Krugman that passes as punditry ("French Family Values") with nothing more than a few photos from the Paris riots. (HT: Donald L. Luskin) A Liberal legacy Blue Blogging Soapbox has a list of 199 things -- the "litany of broken promises, scandal, waste and mismanagement" -- that make up the Jean Chretien-Paul Martin legacy. Very impressive list ... unless you're a Liberal. Or taxpayer. Weak-kneed UN First, read this from the UN press release: "Last month, the Secretary-General had spoken out against remarks attributed to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly calling for Israel to be wiped off the map. At the time, Mr. Dujarric said the Secretary-General would use his visit to focus on the Middle East peace process, and the right of all States in the area to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force. Today, the spokesman explained that: 'In light of the ongoing controversy, it would have been difficult to advance the agenda that he had wanted to discuss with the Iranian leadership'." Em, where to start? First, what do they mean that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks being "attributed to" him? Did he not say that? And what about "reportedly" called for Israel's destruction? After the first qualifier -- an unnecessary qualifier, by the way -- the second was simply overkill. Absolutely disgusting. And predictable. Second, if the UN really supports "right of all States in the area to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force," why did the international organization complain about Israel's security fence? Third, doesn't the statement, "In light of the ongoing controversy, it would have been difficult to advance the agenda that he had wanted to discuss with the Iranian leadership," imply that Kofi Annan does not want to raise the issue of the Iranian president's threats against Israel? And if not, what are his other priorities? Parental notification in the Golden State The AP reports: "Voters will decide whether to make it harder for girls to terminate pregnancies without their parents' knowledge, but recent polls suggest they will reaffirm Californians' long-standing support for unfettered abortion access. Proposition 73 on Tuesday's ballot would require doctors to give a parent or guardian written notice at least 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor." But read a little further a slightly different story emerges. While 70 per cent of Californians support Roe v. Wade, support for "unfettered abortion access" is significantly less. With 41% of respondents to a recent poll supporting Proposal 73 and 49% opposed to it, that would suggest that even many supporters of Roe are uncomfortable with an "unfettered" right to abortion. Saturday, November 05, 2005
Quotidian "I confess I think it [burlesque] dreary, on three counts: it is repetitious, it is weak in all-around talent, and it relies on the appeal, either senile or infantile, of the strip-tease system. Though the name suggests medieval agriculture, the act is said to be America's only original contribution to the theater. Too bad for America, and especially (as I think) for Americans. It is no moral disapproval I am expressing, but regret that so many of my fellow citizens' search for voluptuous sensation translates itself simply into eyetstrain. Apparently they do not mind the shrill or whisky voices and the 'scratch' orchestar, but I do, and to suffer through the eardrums as well as to be bored is not my idea of entertainment." -- Jacques Barzun, God's Country and Mine: A Declaration of Love Spiced with a Few Harsh Words Impressive list of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Yesterday the White House announced a list of those honoured with a Presidential Medal of Freedom including historian Robert Conquest, outgoing Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, General Richard B. Myers, and Rwandan genocide hero Paul Rusesabagina. Others include Muhammad Ali, Carol Burnett Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, Aretha Franklin, Andy Griffith, Paul Harvey, Sonny Montgomery, Jack Nicklaus, and Frank Robinson. All worthy recipients -- other than Muhammad Ali, that is. A strategy for Harper One problem for the Conservative Party when it comes to capitalizing on Adscam is that voters believe that given the chance they (the Tories) would do the same thing. BumfOnline outlines some directions for the Conservatives to campaign on, ones that addresses structural problems that encourage the kind of scandals Judge John Gomery outlined in his report this week, a strategy necessary to overcome voter cynicism that scandals like the kickback scheme of Adscam are inevitable regardless of who is in power: "What is needed is a complete overhaul of Ottawa's power structure, the spreading of influence out of the PMO into Parliament and to the provinces. Human nature is what it is and in political circles, there will always be those willing to exploit whatever they possibly can. However, if there is a devolution of power, if the PMO is stripped of its tight grip on all aspects of federal politics, there would be less opportunity to hide under the protection of a corrupt few in charge. Instead of stressing what crooks the Liberals have been during the past couple of decades, Harper can trump Martin in the next election by proposing broad-based reform of the parliamentary system, and he could do it without threatening to open the constitution. Elected senators, more freedom for MPs, an ethics commissioner beholden to parliament, the assurance of ministerial responsibility ... these are initiatives which could easily resonate with the electorate." Now this won't be enough. Not only do voters think the Tories would be corrupt, too, but that they're scary. But one reason for the latter worry is that the party is not seen to be advancing an agenda. By arguing for elected senators, more freedom for MPs, a truly independent ethics commissioner, etc..., the party will be seen to be favouring something (anything!). Friday, November 04, 2005
More lifetime bans from the Liberal Party needed Earlier this week, Paul Martin banned ten people from being members of the Liberal Party. It is noteworthy that former prime minister, object of Judge John Gomery's scorn and the central figure in Adscam, was not one of them. Gerry Nicholls nominates a number of others who deserve exile. RINO alert Yesterday the House of Representatives passed the Private Property Rights Protection Act by an impressive 376-38 vote. The PPRPA effectively repudiates the Supreme Court’s anti-private property rights Kelo decision. It is unsurprising, actually, that a fair number of Democrats supported the bill but what the heck are "Republicans" Sherry Boehlert (NY) and Mike Turner (Ohio) doing. Thursday, November 03, 2005
Quotidian "Voltaire defined a doctor as a man who introduced substances he did not quite understand into bodies he understood even less. This was not meanly said: Voltaire was a lifelong sick man who loved his doctors and owed them eighty-four years of remarkable activity. But for his sake and theirs he reminded them from time to time that they were limited, not absolute, monarchs. Since then medicine has come up in the world. It being the gateway to many good things, young men beat their way to it. Not the money, but the kudos and the power of life and death is the lure, and for the best hearts and minds, the self-dedication. The temptation to act like Jehovah must be great, and is not always resisted, but that is a risk the public must run." -- Jacques Barzun, God's Country and Mine: A Declaration of Love Spiced with a Few Harsh Words Bork on the reasons to rejoice Robert Bork concludes his fine NRO article on Judge Samuel Alito thusly: "... we do not know how the new chief justice and Justice-to-be Alito will rule on Roe and other liberal constitutional travesties of the past. Why, then, should conservatives support them? Because we can at least be sure that they will not start inventing yet new and previously unheard of constitutional rights. That would in itself be a vast improvement over the imperialistic Court majority’s drive to remake American culture and morality. That it will take at least one more justice of the Roberts-Scalia-Thomas-Alito stripe to return the Court to jurisprudential respectability is no reason not to support Judge Alito to the full. Let us rejoice in what we have gained." Will blacks ever leave the Democratic plantation? This Washington Times report demonstrates the disgusting lows the Democrats will go to win and how too many blacks find nothing wrong with race-baiting, if not outright racism, if it helps defeat an uppity black politician (read: black Republican): "Black Democratic leaders in Maryland say that racially tinged attacks against Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in his bid for the U.S. Senate are fair because he is a conservative Republican. Such attacks against the first black man to win a statewide election in Maryland include pelting him with Oreo cookies during a campaign appearance, calling him an 'Uncle Tom' and depicting him as a black-faced minstrel on a liberal Web log. ... But black Democrats say there is nothing wrong with 'pointing out the obvious.' 'There is a difference between pointing out the obvious and calling someone names,' said a campaign spokesman for Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. State Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, a black Baltimore Democrat, said she does not expect her party to pull any punches, including racial jabs at Mr. Steele, in the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes. 'Party trumps race, especially on the national level,' she said." As I said, disgusting. (HT: Quotulatiousness) Why filibustering Alito will be nearly impossible Or, why 2005 is not 1987 Michael Barone likes David Corn's piece on the difficulty of defeating Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by filibustering him. Barone offers his own two cents about why defeating Alito thusly will be nearly impossible: "Maybe after the left-wing groups launch $10 or $20 million of TV ads things will be different. But I doubt it. Eighteen years ago, when the left-wing groups successfully defeated the nomination of Judge Robert Bork, a lot of things were different. There weren't right-wing groups out there working for his confirmation, nor did the Reagan administration do much for him. There was no blogosphere. There was no Rush Limbaugh program. Mainstream media—the New York Times and the Washington Post, together with ABC, CBS, and NBC News—could characterize Bork pretty much as they wanted without fear of any effective contradiction or refutation. Since about 90 percent of the people working at those media outlets were Democrats, their characterization of Bork was pretty harsh and unflattering." Without getting into the same details, that's the conclusion Corn came to: "If the Alito nomination becomes the titanic battle that both sides in the judicial wars have been anticipating for years, the Democrats and their allies in the lobbying groups will have to create a new playbook to have even a chance of beating back Alito." That's why having some semblance of a conservative (read: alternative) media is important. We should be under not fall for the illusion that FOX News, Rush Limbaugh and the smarter, right-hand side of the blogosphere is as broadly influential as the majority of daily newspapers, the network morning and evening news programs, CNN and PBS, NPR, Time and Newsweek, and ... and all the other MSM outlets that the liberals control or dominate. But conservatives don't need much. Rush Limbaugh has long said "I am balance." In a way, he's correct. All the conservative base needs is a few outlets to help provide information to get their side geared up for a fight. That conservative infrastructure is vitally important and having it in place will change the nature and outcome of the left-wing assault on well-qualified judicial nominations. Kudos to Gates Ditto everything Dr. Madsen Pirie says regarding Bill Gates' role in holding back technological innovation and forcing consumers to buy the latest hardware just to keep up with the improvements in software. More importantly ditto everything Dr. Pirie says about Gates giving money to fight malaria and the focus on bed nets, a cost effective (with the emphasis on effective) measure to battle the problem of malaria now. That said, I was intrigued by this aspect of Pirie's post on eventually eradicating malaria: "... the ultimate goal must be to render the plasmodium itself extinct, probably by genetic modification of the anopheles mosquitoes. Work is being done in London right now to achieve this." (HT: Globalization Institute blog) Singing privatization's praises Here's the rap video for Privatization, promoting, er, well ... privatization. Performed by Tanzanian rapper Ebbo, Adam Smith International describes the song thusly: "[Ebbo is] king fun at the failing parastatal enterprises and demanding modernisation and reform. For months this dominated pop music television broadcasts." Ironically, Ebbo's rap is part of a government project, albeit one to win support for its efforts to privatize state enterprises. (HT: The World Bank's Private Sector Development blog) Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Just wonderin' Someone asked me what happens if the Gomery report is not filed next February as scheduled because of a court challenge by Jean Chretien that may either delay the scheduled release of the final report or end up in getting the whole thing scrapped. I doubt the latter will happen but the former is real possibility. As for Paul Martin and his promised election call within 30 days of the release of the final report? Who knows? But one could easily guess that it will depend on how the Liberals are doing in the polls at the time. Quotidian "The will is the custodian of the feelings and must learn to lead them, not follow them." -- Peter Kreeft, Three Philosophies of Life Staples on the corrupt-government supporting Layton Political Staples takes NDP Leader Jack Layton to task: "NDP Jack Layton continues to walk the fine, maybe infinitesimally fine, line between criticizing the Liberals as a moral corrupt party but one in which he will prop up if he can get NDP policy implemented." Score one for the little guy The newspaper I edit, The Interim, won one today. The Queen's Park Press Gallery wanted to expel our QP columnist Frank Kennedy but a compromise was reached that will allow him to keep his press credentials. Rein in entitlement programs -- for the children Unfunded liabilities will be the end of our children's economic viability if something isn't done about Social Security and Medicare. Walter Williams explains: "Congress can't put aside $75 trillion as reserves against future liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. Therefore, according to the Dallas, Texas-based National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the annual rate of Social Security unfunded liabilities is growing at a $667 billion clip and Medicare's at $4 trillion. What does all this mean? It means little in pocketbook terms to today's Americans who are 65 years or older. They will collect their Social Security checks and their promised Medicare benefits, but not so for future generations. Here's that future according to House Ways and Means Committee testimony, given by Dr. John Goodman, president of the NCPA (May 2005). 'In 2020, combined Social Security and Medicare deficits will equal almost 29 percent of federal income taxes. At that point the federal government will have to stop doing almost a third of what it does today. By 2030, about the midpoint of the baby boomer retirement years, federal guarantees to Social Security and Medicare will require one in every two income tax dollars. By 2050, they will require three in every four.' And by 2070, Social Security and Medicare will consume all federal revenues." Politics being what it is (the playing of one group against the other), Williams says that forcing the next generation of workers to pay for the entitlements of its greedy predecessors could lead to an embittered intergenerational war and that perhaps tomorrow's taxpayers will view euthanasia as a solution the problems caused by the inability (read: unwillingness) of today's politicians to address the issue. Something to think about. So while Williams says that our refusal to consider the future tax burden of our children is evidence that we don't really care about our kids, perhaps the unpleasant conclusion he reaches (intergenerational war, euthanasia) is actually proof that we don't really care about our seniors, either. Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Quotidian "In our time the printed best seller speedily reaches across space but only seldom reaches out in the generations. In the age of the manuscript the power of a single classic author was deathless." -- Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself Absolutely disgusting WorldNetDaily points to this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial which says of the current U.S. Supreme Court makeup: "In losing a woman, the court with [Judge Samuel] Alito would feature seven white men, one white woman and a black man, who deserves an asterisk because he arguably does not represent the views of mainstream black America." This is sick; seldom has the media been so blatant in admitting its extremist liberal view that there is an ideological litmus test to be considered black. Nicholls on what next National Citizens Coalition vice president Gerry Nicholls says someone has to pay a price for the Kickback Program (the scandal formerly known as AdScam) and that person should be Jean Chretien. Nicholls says, "Prime Minister Paul Martin must order RCMP investigations into former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and other top Liberals associated with Adscam. The time has come to punish the guilty no matter how high they are in the party’s hierarchy." Finding that Judge John Gomery's conclusion that Chretien bears responsibility "is not enough" and that "Canadians need to know if Chrétien broke any laws associated with this scandal." Gomery's conclusion that Chretien is ultimately responsible is good for the official record and it may affect what how we view the former prime minister's legacy (for others, it merely confirms it), but someone should also be held legally accountable. As Nicholls says, "So far no one has paid any price for this disgusting scandal. If Prime Minister Martin is serious about making government honest he must punish the guilty." Martin's tough words -- and so far they are very tough, with the prime minister claiming he and his party are "aghast" at the report's conclusions -- are not nearly enough: they must be backed up with action. Chretien -- power hungry A corrupt and arrogant prime minister, desperately doing whatever is necessary to hold onto power. That's the Gomery Commission of Inquiry finding re: former prime minister Jean Chretien and my finding in Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal. You can purchase it through my publisher Freedom Press (Canada) Inc. or at Amazon.ca. Thoughts on ministerial responsibility Even if Judge John Gomery didn't, Burkean Canuck does -- discuss the notion of ministerial responsibility, that is. BC concludes his post thusly: "The first time someone tries to tell you that the Opposition shouldn't assign responsibility where Justice Gomery refused, do Canada a public service, and offer an education in the rudiments of ministerial responsibility. Don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise . . . Prime Minister Martin and every member of his cabinet who were members of the Chretien cabinet from the time the sponsorship program began are responsible." Burkean Canuck's fine post is that education. How the Liberals can 'pay back' Canada Prime Minister Paul Martin desperately wants to appear as if he is doing something about the Kickback Program (aka AdScam) and has thus exiled a number of Liberals, including Alphonso Gagliano, from the party for life. Moreover, according to CP, Martin has asked the RCMP to broaden its investigation, announced that the Liberal Party will repay $1.14 million of taxpayer money that found its way to its Quebec wing's bank accounts, and said that 12 more individuals or companies will be sued to recover the kickbacked cash. But that doesn't really address the advantages the Liberal Party has already enjoyed due to the kickback program itself; the party was more competitive in Quebec in the 1997 and 2000 elections because of the kickbacks, favours, etc... and thus the only way in which the party could "pay back" the country is to have all MPs from the province who were elected in either 1997 or 2000 resign their seats immediately or, at the very least, for all Quebec current incumbents from that era not seek re-election. Of course, that won't happen but it is the only just (that is, only proportionate) punishment for the party that initiated the sponsoring-the-Liberals program in the first place. Unless they undo the benefit they accrued from the scandal, they signal that they can ultimately live with such corruption. (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) BoSox say good-bye to Epstein Theo Epstein, the Red Sox Nation hero and until resigning his post, general manager of the Boston Red Sox, is thought to be the "smartest man in baseball" (C) because he reads Baseball Prospectus every morning and uses statistics to ascertain who he needs to fill out his lineup. Epstein leaving the team has Daniel Drezner upset: "Epstein's innovation as a GM wasn't to use sabremetrics to analyze baseball players -- though he was part of the first wave of GM's to do so. No, Epstein's real gift was to think about the 40 man roster as a portfolio that needed to be diversified, and to exploit the healthy payroll he was given to the hilt. In positions where the Red Sox did not have an All-Star, Epstein managed to sign multiple players whose whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Think of Pokey Reese and Mark Bellhorn at second base in 2004, or the troika of Jeremy Gimbi, David Ortiz, and Kevin Millar at 1B/DH in 2003, or Millar and John Olerud this year at first base. Not every signing paid off, but Epstein hit the jackpot way more often than he crapped out. And he did this without trading away all that much in the way of young talent." Drezner includes some links to what others are saying about losing Epstein including Mike Celizic (MSNBC) and Michael Silverman (Boston Herald) but not Tim Marchman, the smartest baseball writer, who writes about the sport for the New York Sun. In his column (behind a subscribers wall) today, Marchman says that the genius of Epstein is not that he's a sabermetrician (and one that went out and hired Bill James) but that he was one of the few who could convince owners and other baseball executives of the utility of sabermetrics. Marchman writes: "I think Epstein did have unique, irreplaceable skills - not in the area of statistical analysis (there were any number of people who could have pointed out that Ortiz would make a shrewd pickup after the 2002 season), but in working with other people and representing his ideas with clarity and dignity. Out in Los Angeles, Dodgers GM and former Billy Beane disciple Paul DePodesta, who many thought would prove to be at least as successful as Epstein, was fired over the weekend after a year-and-a-half reign that saw him fail, abjectly and miserably, to conscientiously treat all his employees as people, and to account for the fact that even brilliant plans don't always work out. There are a lot of well-educated young men with baseball backgrounds who can be brought in to the Red Sox front office to mediate between the old school and new school advisers floating around, and to argue with Lucchino and owner John Henry. Whether any of them can win everyone's respect while making sure they win the really important games is an open question, but the fact the Epstein alone among all of baseball's new breed of GMs has been truly and unquestionably successful makes me think he's more singular than anxious Red Sox fans might like to think." And in the Red Sox organization's defense, Esptein is 31 and wanted more control of the team. The Red Sox are a billion dollar organization. While you don't want meddling owners to make decisions about day-to-day operations, they certainly should have some say in large contracts and the general direction of the team. Furthermore, the Red Sox were not a one-man show, but rather a team (organization) run by a committee. Time will tell -- both by the how the Red Sox perform in the next couple seasons and future Epstein team performances -- how much of a genius Epstein truly was. Gomery Report on the Kickback Program The Gomery Commission of Inquiry can be found here. The Globe and Mail's first report is here. The Toronto Star's is here. Ops, sorry, the Star didn't run something original -- they simply posted the CP's story. My thoughts on the report are here at The Shotgun. |