Sobering Thoughts |
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Comments on politics, the culture, economics and religion by Paul Tuns -- in short, everything about the human endeavour from a non-hyphenated conservative perspective.
I am Toronto-based writer and editor, whose articles, columns and reviews have appeared in more than 35 publications. I am editor-in-chief of The Interim, Canada's life and family newspaper, author of Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal and a regular contributor to the book pages of the Halifax Herald.
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Saturday, December 31, 2005
Quote of the day "If you're into partisan politics, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture -- the truly seismic shifts in culture and technology that, in the long run, underwrite human progress (or lack thereof)." -- Nick Gillespie, in the Editor's Note of the January 2006 Reason Kinsella on the Martin campaign Yesterday Warren Kinsella wrote: "My spidey sense tells me this: the bottom is NOT going to fall out of the Paul Martin Party campaign. In fact, my gut, which has generally served me well in politics, tells me the bottom has fallen out ALREADY. Yes, yes, yes, I know that's not what SES says. I know, too, that everyone is addicted to these SES daily polls like crack. I'm not. I strongly believe their key balloting question - asking folks how they will vote in their LOCAL riding, which ain't how people think during NATIONAL campaigns - distorts the ultimate result. Beer and popcorn, comparing people to animals, calling opponents unfit for office, offering no policy whatsoever, looking tired and old, bragging in the papers about a negative ad strategy, pretending to be an agent of change, lying about one's record, and - now - an RCMP criminal investigation: all add up to one thing. Arrogance. Voters despise arrogance. The best way to cure arrogance, in a voter's mind: change. Change, change, change. The bottom has fallen out. I feel it. Dithers has three weeks to turn things around. He will need the best ad air war, and the best debate performance, in the history of the planet. He won't pull it off because, at the end of the day, he's not a leader. Never has been, never will be. The second part of the campaign - the real campaign - is over before it has started. You read it here first, as they say." Analysis or wishful thinking? Hart, Burke, abortion etc... Jeffrey Hart and Richard John Neuhaus continue the discussion that begun with Hart's WSJ piece earlier this week. The lines of contention are these: "Simply to pull an abstract 'right to life' out of the Declaration of Independence is not conservative but Jacobinical. To be sure, the Roe decision was certainly an example of judicial overreach. Combined with Casey, however, it did address the reality of the American social process." In short -- and this is a bit of an over-simplication -- Hart argues that Burke would not agree with the conservative attempt to undo the abortion licence. Perhaps, but he would also have argued against using a Supreme Court decision to radically alter abortion law in 1973. Fr. Neuhaus disagrees with both propositions. It just isn't friendly, never mind correct, to call friends Jacobins. Defending authoritarianism in Russia Robert Bruce Ware is an associate professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, wrote over at inthenationalinterest.com earlier this month that NGOs in Russia deserve the restrictions placed on them. The the first sentence of his concludin paragraph offers a taste of his undemocratic screed: "For reasons that I have never understood, Russia pluralistically permits Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Voice of America to operate in its territory, despite their relentless criticism of the Russian government." Goodale to talk to RCMP The Globe and Mail makes a big deal of the fact that Finance Minister Ralph Goodale will meet with the RCMP to co-operate with them on the criminal investigation as to whether information about income trusts were illegally leaked. He said he has no specific message and would let the Mounties set the agenda which, of course, is how it should be: the RCMP is doing a criminal investigation, they have specific questions that need answering. If Goodale were to go in with any other attitude it would be to influence the direction of the investigation, would it not? As Monte Solberg noted several days ago, "Gee, Ralph; I would hope you would cooperate with the investigation. After all this is a CRIMINAL investigation." The Liberals should not win applause for this. It is merely respecting the law. Okay, perhaps they should win applause for this considering respecting the law is so unusual for them. Even if it did take more than a month for Goodale and his Liberal colleagues to get serious about ITscam. Political joke What's the difference between a mugger who tries to steal Pierre Pettigrew's cell phone and the Liberal government? The Liberals are successful when they try to steal. Friday, December 30, 2005
Cameron Tories do something right -- and Right The Daily Telegraph reports that as part of their wealth re-distribution goals, the British Conservatives will not tax the rich. Sadly, party chairman Francis Maude had to even say this. Quote of the day "Most conservative books are pseudo-books: ghostwritten pastiches whose primary purpose seems to be the photo of the 'author' on the cover. What a tumble! From 'The Conservative Mind' to 'Savage Nation'; from Clifton White to Dick Morris; from Willmoore Kendall and Harry Jaffa to Sean Hannity and Mark Fuhrman - all in little more than a generation's time. Whatever this is, it isn't progress." -- Andrew Ferguson, quoted by Andrew Sullivan in his year-end awards blog. Going negative I think that this Conservative ad is a good one. Greg Staples says of it: "Show the electorate that the Liberals are desperate and this is shown by the fact that they will go negative. Hopefully this type of ad can dull their impact." But let's remember one thing: complaining about your opponents going negative is, itself, going negative. Thursday, December 29, 2005
Green could be the new Red Eli Schuster has a piece on the Green Party in the Calgary Herald which concludes: "Assuming the Green Party maintains a steady supply of supply of federal cash and doesn't implode from infighting, it could become the new red Tory party." Looking back and looking forward National Review Online has symposia looking back at 2005 and making predictions for 2006. From the symposium predicting the future: Mark Steyn: "Baby Assad will not last the year as Syria's President. Iraq will recede deeper and deeper into the newspaper due to an ongoing lack of bad news." Andrew Stuttaford: "Sadly, the one prediction that we can be sure of is that 2006 will see yet more terrorist attacks from Islamic extremists. The only mystery is where, when, and how often they will strike." John Derbyshire: "The 'ground zero' site in Manhattan will look very much the same at the end of 2006 as at the beginning. New Orleans will look slightly worse." Clifford D. May, Victor Davis Hanson and Jonah Goldberg all predict that Howard Dean will not end the year as DNC chairman. Carrie Lukas: "Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes will name their baby something odd." Ned Rice: "Barbara Boxer says something incredibly stupid." In the best/worst moments of 2005 are: Laura Ingraham's "best" pick: "Conservatives refusing to accept and ultimately defeating the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court." Bridget Johnson's "worst" pick: "Castro/Chavez lackey and coca farmer Evo Morales winning the Bolivian presidency. Not only are crack dealers everywhere doing a happy dance, but South America continues to melt into a pile of Marxist mush." Send the 'blackout law' to the trash heap of history Gerry Nicholls wrote in the Vancouver Sun yesterday on Section 329 of the Canada Elections Act (the section that prohibits the "premature transmission" of election results on election day), saying it belongs in the Bad Law Hall of Fame. That would be a large hall, wouldn't it? Nicholls begins his column thusly: "If they ever set up a 'Bad Law Hall of Fame,' then section 329 of the Canada Elections Act will be a charter member. Sometimes laws are bad because they are undemocratic and sometimes laws are bad because they are archaic, but section 329 manages the stunning achievement of being both undemocratic and archaic at the same time." Read the whole thing here. Political fallout of RCMP 'investigation' So the police wing of the Liberal Party to look into trustgate (but not Ralph Goodale? Great. Bob Tarantino has a good round-up of the news relating the RCMP investigating a possible leak of information from the finance department (but not the finance minister) about income trusts and concludes with this thought on the political impact: "So... odds of this having a huge impact on the campaign? Fairly low, I'd say. John Ibbitson (free access here) calls the news 'unprecedented', 'stunning', and 'catastrophic'. Perhaps - if we had a media that took seriously it's obligation to hold the government to account, and treated alleged Liberal perfidy with even a shadow of the outrage it treats alleged Conservative deceit. Alas, we aren't so lucky. And it will be difficult in the extreme to undo more than a decade of hosannahs being rained down on the Liberals - certainly just the announcement of an investigation, rather than, say, the announcement of actual charges, won't do it." Islam, religion of peace The AP reports (HT: LGF) "Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family's 'honour'." Ahmed's wife, Rehmat Bibi watched her husband slit the throats of their daughters, Bano, 8, Sumaira, 7, and Humaira, 4, and his 25-year-old stepdaughter, Muqadas. According to the AP, Ahmed said he killed Muqadas because he believed that she committed adultery (local reports say she actually fled her abusive husband) and proceeded to murder his three young daughters so they would not do the same. He said: "I thought the younger girls would do what their eldest sister had done, so they should be eliminated ... We are poor people and we have nothing else to protect but our honor." He bought the butcher's knife and machete after midday prayers. What a perverse sense of honor. Microcredit and disaster relief Pablo Halkyard raises the issue at the Private Sector Development blog. Notably, microfinance didn't do a great job (neither did NGOs) to help rebuild after the tsunami last year, in part because the lenders were themselves victims of the natural disaster. And Halkyard finishes on this positive note: at least they are learning how to respond in the future. Free market environmentalism comes to China The World Bank notes: "Two Chinese companies today signed emission reductions purchase agreements with the World Bank’s Umbrella Carbon Facility for the largest emission reductions project on record. Through the €775 million (US$930 million) contract, the two private chemical companies, Jiangsu Meilan Chemical Co. Ltd., and Changshu 3F Zhonghao New Chemicals Material Co. Ltd, in Jiangsu Province in The People’s Republic of China are expected to reduce emissions of about 19 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually." The state of the punditocracy Over at Slate, Jack Shafer offered some advice (HT: Nikolas Gvosdev) to would be pundits: "The toughest part of the job is developing the ability to reduce everything in the news to the party's latest talking points. Make sure to get yourself on your party's e-mail lists or otherwise learn the correct line. The booker will test your skills at assembling a one-sentence, easily digested sound-bite in the pre-interview. Treat the pre-interview as an audition for a part in a continuing TV drama, because it is. 'Clinton was worse on this than Bush' or its opposite is a perfectly acceptable answer to almost any question. Don't try expressing an original thought on TV or otherwise upstaging the host, or he'll never invite you back. Remember, it's his show and you're just the replaceable talent. And no matter what you do, don't answer pre-interview questions with the preface, 'It's very complicated.' TV isn't the place for complicated discussions of politics. Save your learned dissertation for that 500-word newspaper op-ed you're hoping to place in USA Today." Live blogging a blog debate Spinning Clio makes sense of the robust debate at The Corner over Jeffrey Hart's Wall Street Journal piece on American conservatism. My thoughts on the Bronx Bombers acquiring Johnny Damon Quite a number of readers have asked me what I think about the New York Yankees signing free agent centerfielder Johnny Damon to a four-year $52 million deal. Well, I hate when Boston Red Sox players make the trip 206 miles south to the Bronx and don the pinstripes. At first. But I get over it, usually about the time they are contributing to much-needed wins in August. I hated Johnny Damon but that won't last. He is a major improvement over last year's centerfielder, Bernie Williams, one of my favourite Yankees. Last year Bernie Williams hit a career low 249 as his career average fell below 300 for the first time. Furthermore, Williams was missing balls in the outfield that kids in the sandlot would have made. Damon, on the other hand, was in the top five among American League outfielders for defensive win shares (and tied for fourth overall with new team-mate Hideki Matsui for overall win shares among outfielders). He was also second in outfield putouts in the AL (Williams was 61st). Hitting-wise, he's an improvement, but not as much so. While his recent BA is impressive, it is helped by the fact that he played half of recent seasons in Fenway. His career Fenway average in about 30 points higher than his average in all other stadia, and his career OBA is about 40 points higher. He is an okay lead-off hitter but (and I can't find the numbers right now) not as good as the one they have: Derek Jeter has an OBA about 15 points higher. Ideally, Jeter should hit first, A-Rod should be dropped to third (or fourth) and Damon inserted into the number two slot. That won't happen; Damon will lead off, followed by Jeter. That's fine. If the Yankees take Steve Lombardi's line-up advice they'll can alternate a lefty-righty straight through the line-up with one switch-hitter. The down-side? They payed slightly more for a centerfielder at an age (32) when centerfielders often experience a preciptious decline in ability than he's worth. But the Yankees can afford to overpay for good players. Damon is not the ideal lead-off hitter but the Yankees are fearsome hitters in the one through six slots and above average at second base and catcher. Having a classic lead-off hitter matters less with this line-up. There are two reasons I like the pickup. 1) He is an improvement at centerfield, an important position that the Yankees were frightening at last year. 2) As David Pinto noted, "this is a positive for the Yankees, if for no other reason than the Red Sox need to find a new center fielder, in addition to trying to trade Manny." In fact, when I heard that Damon was becoming a Yankee I was happier about the Red Sox losing the "heart and soul" of their team -- a clubhouse presence that also leads the team on the field -- than I was with the Yankees picking him up. I think that the Red Sox will have serious trouble making the post-season this year -- and that, as Martha Stewart says, is a good thing. Wednesday, December 28, 2005
Scoop Jackson's British followers I'm a little late to this project -- The Henry Jackson Society - Project for Democratic Geopolitics -- but it is quite worth noting. Pretty impressive list of signatories including Gerard Baker, Michael Ancram, Oliver Kamm, Stephen Pollard, Major-General John Drewienkiewicz, Michael Gove, and David Willets to name just a few. Patrons are a who's who of American neocons. There's this from their statement of principles: "1. Believes that modern liberal democracies set an example to which the rest of the world should aspire. 2. Supports a ‘forward strategy’ to assist those countries that are not yet liberal and democratic to become so. This would involve the full spectrum of our ‘carrot’ capacities, be they diplomatic, economic, cultural or political, but also, when necessary, those ‘sticks’ of the military domain. 3. Supports the maintenance of a strong military, by the United States, the countries of the European Union and other democratic powers, armed with expeditionary capabilities with a global reach. 4. Supports the necessary furtherance of European military modernisation and integration under British leadership, preferably within NATO. 5. Stresses the importance of unity between the world’s great democracies, represented by institutions such as NATO, the European Union and the OECD, amongst many others. 6. Believes that only modern liberal democratic states are truly legitimate, and that any international organisation which admits undemocratic states on an equal basis is fundamentally flawed. 7. Gives two cheers for capitalism. There are limits to the market, which needs to serve the Democratic Community and should be reconciled to the environment. 8. Accepts that we have to set priorities and that sometimes we have to compromise, but insists that we should never lose sight of our fundamental values. This means that alliances with repressive regimes can only be temporary. It also means a strong commitment to individual and civil liberties in democratic states, even and especially when we are under attack." I'm skeptical of talk about reconciling capitalism with the environment and alligning ourselves with repressive regimes, even temporarily. But on the whole, a worthwhile project. It's sad, isn't it, that Britons supportive of both the Labour and Conservative parties would find in Henry "Scoop" Jackson a model which the Democratic Party in America that he belonged to has so soundly rejected? My IPod I know I complained about anti-social IPod users a few weeks ago but that didn't stop me from asking Santa for a video IPod for Christmas. I hoped not to use it all the time and tune out the rest of the world. I wanted one so I could watch the previous evening's news and listen to the previous day's Rush Limbaugh show on my way to work or even while there. Mrs. Tuns obliged and now the IPod goes everywhere -- in the car (where we use the an adapter to play the music we want instead of listening to a single CD or some radio station), in the airplane, hooked up to our stereo during breakfast and, of course, while at the computer. I have always enjoyed the shuffle feature on our five-disc CD player but the shuffle feature on a machine that has 3000 songs and speeches (so far) is too much. The last hour: Super Freak (Rick James), Now Do You Call That a Buddy? (Louis Armstrong), Nice and Easy (Frank Sinatra), Concerto in E Minor for Recorder, Flute, Strings and Basso (Georg Philippe Telemann), Tragedy (Bee Gees), Baby's in Black (The Beatles), Petits Machins (Miles Davis), When I'm Gray (Johnny Cash), Pur nel sonno almen talor - Canata IV (Domenico Scarlatti), Teil Il Christus, der uns selig macht (Johann Sebastian Bach), Mamma Mia (ABBA), Along the Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix), White Tornado (REM), Orange Blossom Special (Johnny Cash), Cubana Bop (Dizzy Gillespie), Keyboard Concerto in A Minor (Johann Sebastian Bach), Temptation (Tea Party), William Buckley on sailing the Pacific Ocean (from the CD accompanying his memior Miles Gone By). What radio station would play that combination? UPDATE: No sooner am I done writing this blog when I read this by Scott Spiegelberg at Musical Perceptions: "I now need to decide how often I want to listen to music. If I make it ubiquitous, I stop listening, which I consider a bad thing. I think it will mostly be used for jogging and long car/airplane trips, though I am listening right now as I am blogging..." David Cameron, keeper of the conservative flame? The Daily Telegraph begins its editorial on alleviating poverty in Africa thusly: "We can see why David Cameron was keen to involve Bob Geldof in his commission on global poverty. Mr Geldof has extraordinary appeal: a hero of the anti-capitalist movement, he is also a successful businessman, a Daily Telegraph reader, a Euro-sceptic and a knight." So let's get this right: David Cameron, leader of the British Tories, picks a "hero of the anti-capitalist movement" to join his commission on global poverty. What's next? Stephen Harper can get policy advice from Naomi Klein? Where's the Mercedes? and why asking that question disqualifies you as a serious journalist James Bone, the New York correspondent of the London Times, writes in Opinion Journal, about Kofi Annan's outburst against him as an unserious journalist. It all comes down to the fact that Bone has repeatedly asked where is Kojo Annan's Mercedes? Here's Bone's account: "Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary-general and Nobel peace laureate, is normally the meekest of diplomats. He is so accommodating he once described Saddam Hussein as a man "I can do business with." These days he spends a good deal of time on the phone with Syria's Bashar al-Assad. Yet he seems to have problem with me. It was with some amusement that I found myself the target of a decidedly undiplomatic tirade by the U.N. chief at a news conference last week. The usually mild Mr. Annan erupted in an ad hominem attack, calling me 'cheeky' and belittling me as an 'overgrown schoolboy.' Although I have covered the U.N. in minute detail for The Times of London since 1988, and have known Mr. Annan for almost all that time, he suggested I was not a 'serious journalist.' The cause of Mr. Annan's ire was a question I put to him about a Mercedes car that his son Kojo had imported into Ghana (and which cannot, now, be traced). The facts indicate that Kojo had bought the car in his father's name, thereby obtaining a diplomatic discount and a tax exemption totaling more than $20,000. The question about the car--to which Mr. Annan again refused to give a satisfactory answer--is part of the wider probe into his role in the U.N.'s Oil for Food scandal. Despite months of investigation, important questions about the integrity of public officials remain unanswered. If we are serious about U.N. reform--as Mr. Annan claims to be--they must be resolved. ... The Mercedes was purchased by Kojo Annan in his father's name four days before the Hotel de Crillon meeting--and about two weeks before Cotecna won the U.N. contract. The use of the U.N. chief's diplomatic status qualified the car for a $6,541 discount on the purchase price and a $14,103 tax exemption when it was imported to his native Ghana. Mr. Volcker's investigators found a memo on the computer of Mr. Annan's personal assistant asking him to authorize a letter to Mercedes. "Sir, Kojo asked me to send the attached letter re: the car he is trying to purchase under your name. The company is requesting a letter be sent from the U.N. Kojo said it could be signed by anyone from your office. May I ask Lamin to sign it?" the assistant wrote. Neither Kofi Annan, his aide Lamin Sise, nor his assistant, Wagaye Assebe, can recall what happened, and the original documents have disappeared--but somehow the Mercedes was purchased with the diplomatic discount anyway. Abdoulie Janneh, the U.N. official who arranged the tax exemption in Ghana was recently promoted to U.N. under-secretary-general, in charge of the Economic Commission for Africa. Amid the clutter of unanswered questions, one query has the virtue of simplicity: Where is the car? I have been asking this for weeks at the U.N.'s daily briefing. It was this question that triggered Kofi Annan's outburst. He clearly wants me to shut up. I'm afraid, Mr. Secretary-General, that would be the wrong thing for me to do. Every schoolboy knows that." Heffer's advice to Blair In his Daily Telegraph column, Simon Heffer proposes 10 things that British Prime Minister Tony Blair should do to fix England. The proposals range from cutting spending and fixing the NHS and state education to restoring freedom of speech and creating a "new policy on monoculturalism." All are sound proposals -- that is they are worth debating and, for the most part, acting on -- but the point is that after a decade in power Blair is not going to do any of those things. This explains Muslim silence about post-9/11 terror Stephen Schwartz at TCS Daily last week: "Muslims in the US and Great Britain are, today, far more dominated by Islamist extremism than their counterparts in various Muslim countries. In many lands where the majority follows Islam, a struggle is underway between mainstream moderates and radicals inspired by the ultra-Wahhabi preachers of Saudi Arabia, the agitators of the Muslim Brotherhood in various Arab countries, and the virulent and volatile adherents of Pakistani jihadism ... Yet the Islamic communities of the U.S. (dominated by the Saudis) and Britain (run by radical Pakistanis) suffer under a totalitarian regime of thought-control." (HT: Kathy Shaidle) Are we frogs not noticing the slow boil? Gerry Nicholls points to this great Walter Williams column in which the George Mason U. economist notes that small infringements on personal liberty often later leads to ever greater infringements. Williams uses two contemporary examples (freedom of religion and the freedom to enjoy a cigarette) and Nicholls adds his own Canadian example: "Here in Canada we will likely see the same thing with election gag laws. This law began as an attack on the right on non-political parties to participate in elections. I dread to think where it could eventually lead." I had a conversation about a week ago with a co-worker about the loss of liberty in general and how people accept every infringement until its too late to do anything and how citizens everywhere need to begin fighting back. Eventually the restrictions are so great that fighting back becomes impossible. You've been warned. I thought conservatives were supposed to be doom and gloomers Stanley Kurtz in The Corner on the Republican future: "[T]he Democrats as a whole have typed themselves as the party of weakness for the remaining lifetime of everyone now reading this post. Future terrorism will inevitably push the country to the right. Demographic pressure on the welfare state is also likely to put the Republicans in the drivers seat over the long term. So far at least, Alito looks like he'll be confirmed. If that happens, it will have set a political precedent for a genuinely conservative third nominee, likely before the end of the president's term. So while our political-cultural battles aren't going away, the dream of a long-term era of Republican dominance is very much alive." Conservatives should chill a bit What is it with conservatives (such as Stephen Taylor) joining in with the mainstream media chorus of playing the racism card on Mike Klander? Greg Staples put it best by describing the Liberal official's webstite comments as "adolescent" humour, but the feigned (or worse, real) outrage is too much. A visual representation of Olivia Chow as a chow dog is not a "racist" attack but obviously a play on her name. That is the understanding of Conservative leader Stephen Harper who said: "I don't think it helps itself by running a campaign of personal attack and slur, which is what it has been doing -- comparing political opponents to animals." But I think he misses the point, too. Klander is not running an official Liberal Party website and his blog is hardly part of the Liberal campaign. Truth be told, many conservatives have made similar comments and laughed about them at private parties and if conservative bloggers did not have the full hate-on for the Liberals -- an attitude that leads them to accept politically correct pieties if it means scoring political points against their nemisis -- they would, too. Let me commit a conservative heresy and agree with Klander on several points. He refers to Rona Ambrose as "sexy." Stephen Taylor says that is misogynistic. I think both are wrong. Ambrose isn't sexy but it's harldy misogynistic to point it out if she was. More importantly, though is the hypocrisy of Conservatives on this. The unspoken assumption of Conservatives when they put her forward as the face of the Tories is that some Canadians believe she is not hard on the eyes and she is thus a great face to put on the party. That is, there is some "sex factor" being considered by the Tories themselves. Furthermore, I can't help but believe that Rahim Jaffer and other ethnics appear on stage alongside the party leader because they are visible minorities. It is not that Ambrose and Jaffer and others are not talented but that politics is so debased that the Conservatives must be "politically correct" in their presentation of their party. So Klander has a point. Even if he stoops to adolescent jokes to make some of them. All that said, I think that Ezra Levant strikes the right tone in his earlier Shotgun post. (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Monday, December 26, 2005
End-of-year list Biggest idiots of 2005 10. Everyone who exploited the year's natural disasters -- Con artists who pocketed the money they said they were raising for disaster relief, politicians who sought political gain in the days after Katrina or painted President George W. Bush as a racist because of his "slow response" to the Hurricane, UN officials who castigated the United States for being cheap. 9. The mainstream media -- For substituting ideological wishes for real reporting. Too many examples to cite. 8. Cindy Sheehan -- She has turned the death of her son in Iraq into an anti-Bush carnival to become the 2005 version of Michael Moore. 7. Michael Schiavo -- The wife murderer 6. John Kerry -- Insinuated that U.S. troops in Iraq are terrorists. 5. Jack Layton -- Helped prop up a corrupt government. 4. Belinda Stronach -- Helped prop up a corrupt government by joining it. 3. Paul Martin -- Incompetent and arrogant is an ugly combination. 2. The Nobel Peace Prize committee -- They gave its prize to the International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes" despite the fact it is doing nothing to prevent Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear energy for military purposes. 1. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- Do I need to explain why the Iranian president deserves top spot? Sunday, December 25, 2005
Merry Christmas Merry Christmas to all. And as Vermont Royster wrote in 1949, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." Quotidian "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.' Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.' When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, 'Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.' So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told." -- Luke 2: 1-20 Friday, December 23, 2005
Equality, even poverty, is a relative term The Economist tells of the plight of Enos Banks, a retiree from Kentucky, and Mbwebwe Kabamba, a surgeon in the Congo, both of whom make about $500 a month. It is full of interesting facts -- Dr. Kabama cannot afford to have air conditioning (that's only for VIPs he says), although a majority of America's "poor" have air conditioning. Likewise, as Dr. Kabama laments he only has meat twice a month, the Economist notes that poor Americans eat more meat than wealthy Americans. The article concludes with this extraordinary observation: "The point of this article is neither to mock Mr Banks nor to praise Dr Kabamba. Both have their virtues and flaws, and your correspondent cannot reliably judge which is the happier. But here are two concluding observations. First, if poor Americans were to compare their standard of living with what is normal elsewhere in the world, let alone in Congo, they would see they have little cause for discontent. Then again, were Americans not so incurably discontented with their lot, their great country would not be half as dynamic as it is." Charles may go by George The London Times reports that Prince Charles may go by George VII instead of Charles III when (pray, if) he becomes king because of his name's association with "some of the bloodiest periods in the monarchy’s history." Charles I was the only king to be executed (beheaded in 1649) and Charles II spent nearly two decades in exile. Perhaps, though Charles is hoping to avoid association with Charles II and his mistresses? Krauthammer on wiretapping The conclusion of Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer's piece today perfectly sums up my view on President George W. Bush's ordering domestic communications surveillance of al-Qaeda operatives -- and Bush's political opponents: "Contrary to the administration, I also believe that as a matter of political prudence and comity with Congress, Bush should have tried to get the law changed rather than circumvent it. This was an error of political judgment. But that does not make it a crime. And only the most brazen and reckless partisan could pretend it is anything approaching a high crime and misdemeanor." That is Bush perhaps over-stepped but not by doing the surveilleance but by not getting Congress to amend the law. But if Bush over-stepped and committed bad judgment, his opponents on the Left has over-stepped, too, calling for a punishment that is not proportionate to the lack of judgment the president demostrated. Thursday, December 22, 2005
Quotidian "The writer studies literature, not the world. He lives in the world; he cannot miss it. If he has ever bought a hamburger, or taken a commercial airplane flight, he spares his readers a report of his experience. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know." -- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life Someone remind me why we need conservative parties The Daily Telegraph interviewed Oliver Letwin -- "one of David Cameron's closest advisers" -- during which he says: "Of course, inequality matters. Of course, it should be an aim to narrow the gap between rich and poor. It is more than a matter of safety nets." And: "We do redistribute money and we should redistribute money. But we have to find ways that empower people rather than reducing them to dependency." While it is good that Letwin said that people shouldn't be reduced to dependency, he didn't offer any particular policies to reduce income inequality. Either he 1) is merely mouthing liberal platitudes about inequality or 2) he means it and hasn't figured out what to do about inequality. I have never heard a persuasive argument as to why inequality is even an issue and I can't imagine the argument why conservatives should care. But I've all but given up on conservative parties. The state of Uruguayan soccer Here's an interesting story on soccer in Uruguay from its Olympic championships in the 1920s and first World Cup in 1930 to a domestic league in which cows encroach the practice fields of the championship team and a game this year that saw a grand total attendance of eight. Private investment from Mexico might help rejuvenate the league which would be great if it helps keep some of the country's star playing at home a little longer and paid better for doing so. Judicial whims rather than the law governs Canada Kate McMillan sums up the meaning of the Supreme Court of Canada's swingers club 7-2 decision: "The Supreme Court Of Canada has now erased the principle of community standards in law." In yesterday's decision, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said: "Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society." Kate reminds us that several weeks ago Chief Justice McLachlin told law students at the Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) that, "The rule of law requires judges to uphold unwritten constitutional norms, even in the face of clearly enacted laws or hostile public opinion" and "There is certainly no guarantee or presumption that a given list of constitutional principles is complete, even assuming the good faith intention of the drafters to provide such a catalogue." In other words, judges can just make it up as they go. And as they did yesterday, dismiss community standards in law. The Conservatives' week so far I don't think they've been having a great week because Stephen Harper has made two unnecessary mistakes. National Citizens Coalition vice president Gerry Nicholls points to both them: 1) Conservatives turning the other cheek: The Globe and Mail reported on Tuesday that "the Conservative strategy of ignoring harsh personal attacks and refraining from making them in return while instead peppering the country with ideas, looks to be set in stone." Nicholls calls it "a dubious strategy," saying: "One of the reasons the Tories fell short in the last election was that they failed to effectively respond to Liberal attacks ads. Politics is a blood sport, and sometimes you got to fight fire with fire. Otherwise you will get burned." 2) Harper wanting to debate the Bloc in Quebec: Nicholls says that the Conservatives won't swing enough votes their way to win seats in the province, adding: "What they could do, however, is weaken the Bloc enough to allow the Liberals to win a few more seats in Quebec – maybe enough seats to keep the Grits in power." So the winner of a Stephen Harper/Gilles Duceppe debate could be, if Harper "demolishes" the Bloc leader, Paul Martin's Liberals who could maintain their Quebec seat total or even improve upon it. Why strengthen the Liberal hand? God bless John Bolton The US ambassador to the UN is a national treasure because he is incredibly, and often impolitely, honest. UPI and the Boston Globe both report that he has urged the admininstration to withhold its funding of the UN unless the international organization delivers real reform. Bolton is holding up the UN budget until he sees a commitment to fix some of what is broken and has proposed a three-month interim budget to give time for the Secretariat to begin getting the UN's house in order. The EU opposes Bolton's tactics. The Globe reports: "'As much as we agree with the reform effort, we do not support the tactic of using the budget as a weapon,' said one EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations. 'Management reform is a long-term thing. You won't get it done in a couple of months. We have to have a UN that is operational in order to get the reform done'." Bolton responds: if you don't force the UN to do it now, they'll put it off until the next two-year budget approval process, which is 2008. Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick. Bolton isn't speaking in hushed tones and his stick certainly is getting the attention of the UN: American dues account for 22% of the organization's budget. Furthermore, he is ruffling feathers by challenging diplomats from other country's for their failure to confront the evil of terrorism and those that support it. Says Bolton spokesman Richard Grenell, "We are not going to play the etiquette game. [We are here] to advance the US foreign policy at the UN." Thankfully. Libertarian students rejoice Even as a conservative I am heartened by the news of the creation of the first libertarian newspaper at an American university -- the Pennsylvania Independent. (HT: Oxblog) Some of the stories are not very well written but I especially enjoyed this article about how university regulations are killing the frat party. Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Quotidian "His indignation began to take a more personal shape when the speaker, branching off from the main subject of Socialism, began to touch on temperance. There was no particularly reason why Mr. Waller should have introduced the subject of temperance, except that he happened to be an enthusiast. He linked it on to his remarks on Socialism by attributing the lethargy of the masses to their fondness for alcohol; and the crowd, which had been inclined rather to pat itself on the back during the assaults on Rank and Property, finding itself assailed in its turn, resented it. They were there to listen to speakers telling them that they were the finest fellows on earth, not pointing out their little failings to them." -- P.G. Wodehouse, Psmith in the City Japan depopulating The AP reports that for the first time, Japan is depopulating with 10,000 more deaths than births. The decline occurred one year earlier than projections predicted. Meme of Four Terry Teachout's Meme of Four looked fun. Here is mine off the top of my head. (It's pathetic when you tag yourself but I absolutely love lists.) Four jobs you've had in your life: bread delivery boy, mini golf and arcade attendant, working with the developmentally handicapped, editing The Interim Four movies you could watch over and over: Godfather I, Godfather II, Goldfinger, Planet of the Apes Four places you've lived: Woodstock, Kitchener, Waterloo (technically a different city), Toronto Four TV shows you love to watch: Oz, Homicide, The Simpsons, Dallas Four places you've been on vacation: New York, Boston, Las Vegas, Europe Four websites you visit daily: Just four? Here's the first four I check out daily: New York Sun, National Review, TSC Daily, the World Bank and its Private Sector Development Blog. Four of your favorite foods: pizza (even when it's bad, it's good), medium well barbecued steak, my dad's spaghetti, my aunt's croquettes Four places you'd rather be: New York City, wherever there is an orchestra playing Handel's Messiah, any place warm, in bed I'm going to tag Greg Staples, Publius at GCH, Russ Kuykendall, Bob Tarantino Rare case of tribunal sanity The Daily Telegraph reports that a 25-year-old British Muslim lost his employment tribunal complaint against his employer after claiming Direct Line Insurance discriminated against him (and other Muslims and teetotalers) because it offered wine as a performance incentive. He sought damages for "hurt feelings." The paper reports that another Muslim who worked for the insurance company "exchanged his wine for gift vouchers." Big Brother is watching In a crime-fighting effort in Great Britain, surveillance cameras will keep track of every car as it drives around the island and keep the records for two years. The Independent reports: "By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites." The program is not even up and running and there are already plans to vastly expand it. I wonder if Brits feel any safer. Holding experts accountable Louis Menard's review Philip Tetlock’s new book, Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? in a recent New Yorker (HT: John Derbyshire). Menard says: "[P]eople who make prediction their business—people who appear as experts on television, get quoted in newspaper articles, advise governments and businesses, and participate in punditry roundtables—are no better than the rest of us. When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it, either. They insist that they were just off on timing, or blindsided by an improbable event, or almost right, or wrong for the right reasons. They have the same repertoire of self-justifications that everyone has, and are no more inclined than anyone else to revise their beliefs about the way the world works, or ought to work, just because they made a mistake." This reminds me of what Allan Gregg said on the night of the June 2004 election when asked by Peter Mansbridge about why the polls were wrong. Gregg said, in essence, that the polls were not wrong because they were right at the time they were conducted. Well, well, isn't that nice. The pollsters and other experts not only never admit they are wrong but essentially (with pollsters at least) say that they cannot be proved wrong. Nice work if you can get it. UN redundancy watch The United Nations reports on the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission: "In an historic action that brings to fruition a central reform proposed by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the 2005 World Summit, the Security Council and the General Assembly today acted in concert to establish a new body that aims to prevent countries emerging from conflict from falling back into chaos." Isn't that what the UN is already supposed to do? Whatever helps you sleep at night CubaNet reported yesterday: "HAVANA, December 20 (Amarilis C. Rey, Cuba-Verdad / www.cubanet.org) - State security agents arrested rafter Amaury Hernández Frómeta, 33, when he was returned to Cuba after being picked up by an American oil tanker at sea. Hernández Frómeta said he refused a request by an agent named Pedro to accompany him to the police station for an "interview" unless he produced an official citation. The agent then returned with two policemen who forcibly removed Hernández Frómeta. Hernández Frómeta had been taken to Venezuela on the oil tanker that picked him up. From there he was returned to Cuba. Under an agreement with the United States, Cuba is forbidden to retaliate against rafters returned by the U.S. Coast Guard." Read that last paragraph again. Whatever makes Americans feel better about returning those who escaped Fidel Castro's island gulag back to that prison state, I guess. Great 2005 list Steven Milloy has a list of the 10 worst moments for free enterprise including Wal-Mart lobbying for an increase in the minimum wage, the annual Business for Social Responsibility meeting and various companies capitulating to environmentalist extremists. Americans prefer to say Merry Christmas According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, as reported by CNN: "61 percent of respondents said more stores and institutions using 'Happy holidays' rather than 'Merry Christmas' is a change for the worse." 69% use Merry Christmas compared to 29% who use Happy Holidays -- a 12 point drop for the latter. Happy days are here again. Or is that merry days. Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Sundry items Ken Dryden was 15 feet from my front door when I got home a few minutes ago. A volunteer (I suppose) asked if I wanted to talk to him. With great disgust I said no, unlucked my door and went inside. That was wrong. I should have chastized him for his condescending attitude toward parents -- and a million other things -- but I wasn't in the mood. Is it just me or did the federal election campaign get very boring immediately after the debates? Want to give someone an amazing gift for Christmas (or whatever), give what my wonderful gave me last year: an electronic subscription to the New York Sun. Normally $16.25 a quarter, it has a special introductory rate of $34.95 for the year. Imagine giving a gift every weekday of the year. Imagine receiving it. For those of you who have asked what happened to the weekend list, here's the simple answer: life. Sometimes I don't have time, often I forget. I will probably resume the list this weekend with a year-end list of some sort and it appear periodically after the New Year. I'll be back tomorrow. Finishing up The Interim which goes to press Wednesday, but only if I don't get distracted by blogging. Monday, December 19, 2005
Quotidian "Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves." -- C.S. Lewis, Compelling Reason Cosh's prediction This is a couple days old but here's Colby Cosh's prediction about the make-up of the House of Commons the day after January 23: Liberal: 126 Conservative: 105 Bloc Quebecois: 59 New Democrat: 18 He says that the Tories make modest (very modest) gains in Ontario, the Bloc does likewise in Quebec and says talk about a Tory bloodbath in BC is rubbish. What Iraqi election? Paul Kengor writes in TAS Online that there is a VLWC out to get George W. Bush and it often misrepresents what happens in Iraq to score points against the president. But the day after the Iraqi elections, the New York Times didn't spin the news negatively. It ignored the election, focusing instead on Bush "spying on innocent Americans" which Kengor called a "desperate gasp to knock the Iraq triumph from the front pages." The Times leads and the media herd follows: "To be sure, it is not that the legions of left-wing journalists are sheep who bah-bah in sycophancy to the Times's lead. Rather, they are like modern-day shepherds following the guidance of the Divine Star hovering above Manhattan, where the King lay to offer them political redemption." PBS's Jim Lehrer asked Bush about domestic spying and Bush lectured him that there were bigger stories that day, namely the largely incident-free vote in Iraq. So what happens when the Times ignores the Iraq election? It's like it never happened and no one notices. Who's great Bought The Who Live at the Royal Albert Hall tonight for my eldest son and immediately confiscated it. It's excellent. The highlight: Baba O'Riley performed with violinist Nigel Kennedy. Amen brother Kudlow Larry Kudlow at NRO: "Unlike a lot of economists, I’ve never truly believed that the Federal Reserve is really my friend, or a friend of financial markets and the economy. True enough, I started at the New York Fed over thirty years ago, and got a good education there. But frankly, I’d rather bet on America’s free economy, and the men and women who do the real heavy economic lifting by exercising their God-given talents to invent, produce, take risks, and work hard at their jobs, than bank on the Fed. This is provided of course that the U.S. government gets out of the way by allowing for sufficient after-tax rewards and incentives. Deregulate America, and U.S. capitalism will soar. Whether it’s monetary or fiscal, central planning is the antithesis to prosperity." Ladies in White I forgot to mention this on the weekend, a great little story by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the Wall Street Journal on a group of Cuban women -- the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of dissidents held in Fidel Castro's jail -- defy the regime after Sunday Mass each week by dressing in white and walking ten blocks from St. Rita's Church in Havana to a local park. O'Grady says, "Their show of resistance impressed a people who were conditioned to cower. Their ranks grew. They now number about 30 on a regular basis, but on special occasions such as Mother's Day, the group can swell. Reports from the island say that as many as 100 have joined in." And surprisingly, the European Parliament honoured the women with its Sakharov Prize. Congratulations to the EP for a wise and brave and unpredictable choice. Castro would not allow the ladies to leave the island and he now joins the De Klerk government of South Africa as the only regimes to deny a recipient permission to travel to receive his or her reward. Sunday, December 18, 2005
Quotidian "Sometimes the professor with his bone becomes almost as dangerous as a dog with his bone." -- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man Mader on Martin's lie about SSM and the Charter Here is David Mader's post on Paul Martin claim that the Charter protects same-sex marriage: "Okay, maybe they do law differently in Canada, but when CTV reports on Paul Martin's attack on Stephen Harper with the assertion: Critics have said [that] same-sex marriage is upheld by the charter. I have to ask: isn't this just, well, not true? I've read the Supreme Court's advisory opinion, and as far as I can tell it specifically declines to answer that question. As I've subsequently noted, the assertion that same sex marriage is 'protected by the charter' - such that the Civil Marriage Act could not be amended - depends on the assumption that the Supreme Court will agree with the provincial high courts. But they haven't agreed yet. Now here in the state's there has been, for two hundred years, a notion that the Supreme Court gets to say what the law is. Either Canada doesn't have such a principle - and so the high court of British Columbia can bind the national legislature on the meaning of the Constitution - or these 'critics' are, how you say, wrong. Would somebody please explain to me a) whether my analysis is faulty, and b) why the Tory war room doesn't have some constitutional lawyer pointing out this very, very, very rudimentary legal state of affairs?" Might I suggest that Harper doesn't really want to engage the Liberals on this issue despite the fact that revisiting the issue of same-sex marriage has the support of the majority of Canadians. Good news just isn't interesting: journalist The Canadian Taxpayers Federation's David MacLean notes that a reporter explained to him the reason his news outlet didn't run with a story on the positive development by the city of Saskatoon in reducing employee absenteeism and thus saving taxpayers' dollars: "It's not that we don't like good news. It's just that it didn't really spark anyone's interest." Democracy spreading The King of Bhutan will step down as ruler in 2008 and two-party parliamentary elections will determine the next ruler. The move will end the absolute monarchy that has ruled the mountainous nation located between India and China since 1907. Political scuttlebutt Robert Novak reports that Donald Rumsfeld is sending signals that he intends to stay on as Defense Secretary for the next three years and that Andrew Card is trying to squash rumours that he will replace John Snow as Treasury Secretary, that the GOP will put off a decision about a full-time replacement for Tom DeLay until after the State of the Union Address, Democratic presidential hopeful Evan Bayh's centrist credentials may be under fire and former Virginia governor James Gilmore may be eyeing a run for his old job. Bandow suspended Copley News Service has suspended libertarian Doug Bandow's syndicated column and he has resigned as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute after it was revealed that lobbyist Jack Abramoff had paid for or suggested column ideas -- perhaps as many as 24 of them. Reason's Nick Gillespie and the Washington Post have stories on it. The left-wing blogs are about to have a field day. Not perfect but good enough? The London Times applauds the baby steps toward freer trade that the Doha Round has offered, including lowering agricultural export subsidies progressively through 2013, although it laments the opportunity lost in not going further. The Age reports that the agreement didn't go very far at all: "OxFam Australia chief executive Andrew Hewett said export subsidies accounted for just 3.5 per cent of the protection paid out by the EU." The deal didn't go further because EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson has effectively become, as the Globalization Institute's Alex Singleton has said in The Business, "little more than a mouthpiece for French farmers." There are other significant developments including cutting eliminating quotas and tariffs 97% of categories of goods from the world's 50 poorest nations by 2008, which is a positive step forward. For the developing world, the more free trade the better yet the anti-globalization crowd decries liberalizing trade. The Times editorial: "The flat earth opponents of globalisation like to caricature these sorts of deliberations in terms of 'rich' versus 'poor.' Free trade benefits all concerned and the poor most. If the Doha round of trade talks is completed, then hundreds of millions of the poorest on the planet will have the opportunity to sell to the world and establish markets at home. Why that possibility attracts hostile demonstrations against it is a sign of the vacuousness that characterises the anti-globalisation movement." In soccer, a mixed day for Tuns family I'm quite happy with AC Milan's 4-0 win over Messina today in Serie A action, closing the gap with Juventas. There is still a nine point spread, but Milan helped themselves by scoring four goals today which will matter if it comes down to goal differential. And who doesn't like to see four goals in a game? My eldest son was diapponited with Premier League action today as Chelsea beat his struggling Arsenal 2-0. As the London Times reports, the sale of Patrick Vieira now looks foolish. To make matters worse for Gunners fans, there is talk of Thierry Henry's sale to Barcelona next year. Fortunately, my son Patrick is also an AC Milan fan. Chretien Liberals, Martin Liberals My article on the Paul Martin Liberals being the Jean Chretien Liberals despite the former's attempt to put distance between himself and Adscam can be found here at Business Report. In short here's what I say: Paul Martin isn't really serious about getting to the bottom of the kickback scheme (aka the sponsorship scandal) or he would be calling for a wider police investigation and he'd order an audit of the Liberal Party's books (there's more than $30 million missing and unaccounted for) with the possibility of suing the LPC to recover more than just the million dollars he has ordered it to payback to Canadian taxpayers. Saturday, December 17, 2005
Quotidian "The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it is redeemed spiritually." -- Woodrow Wilson, "The Road Away from Revolution, The Messages and Papers of Woodrow Wilson Grain subsidies are chicken feed -- and that's a problem The Christian Science Monitor reports that while the European Union and the United States do not subsidize their poultry farmers, the industry does benefit from grain subsidies which ensure that they can feed their chickens cheaply. This is hurting West Africa's poultry industry. Ghana's National Association of Poultry Farmers claims that European chickens are 40% cheaper than locally raised birds -- and that's after shipping and retail mark-up costs are calculated. My guess is that the NAPF is exaggerating slightly but Ghanan farmers understandably want the restoration of tariffs that were eliminated earlier this year. Understandable but wrong. If Western liberals really cared about the plight of the poor in the developing world, they'd call for an end to agricultural market-distorting farm subsidies. It's good economics and compassionate. Harold Bloom should stick to literary criticism... ... Instead of using literature to survey American history and politics to criticize the current political situation where, he asserts, the US is on the verge of becoming a theocracy. Talk of oligarcy/plutocracy/theocracy makes him sound a little Michael Mooreish/Paul Krugmanite. It is thoroughly unpleasant fare. Times on Iraq A London Times editorial notes that for the third time in less than 12 months, Iraqis went to the polls, demanding and making change. This is an unqualified success: "It is important, though, to recognise that the story is evolving. The simplistic portrayal of Iraq as 'a disaster' is not one that could be reconciled with the reality on the ground. It has been a traumatic year, but it will end with the possibility of a peaceable, pluralist and prosperous Iraq much enhanced. Irrespective of where a person stood on the conflict at the outset, it would be bizarre, if not immoral, for progress in Iraq to be regarded as anything less than welcome." Top football books Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason lists his five favourite football books for the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. The first one, When Pride Still Mattered, a biography of Vince Lombardi by David Maraniss, is a great book that can be enjoyed even by those who are not football fans. Novak to Fox A friend sent along a link to this story about Robert Novak leaving CNN for Fox News. Novak hasn't been on air since he swore and walked off a set in August and will join Fox in January. His contract expires later this month. I don't watch much CNN but I always look forward to their year-in-review programs with Novak pontificating in his bright red sweater. But not this year. Friday, December 16, 2005
Quotidian "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." -- Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents Quote of the day Kathy Shaidle: "From the beginning, AIDS activism has been more about mainstreaming the gay 'lifestyle' than saving lives." My two cents on the non-debate Several observations/comments. 1) Paul Martin waves his hands too much. Way too much. 2) Stephen Harper's smile seemed forced. He was seems to have been advised to smile and he did. Unconvincingly. 3) When talked he about SSM, Gilles Duceppe said you can't revisit issues after they've been settled. Hmmmm. Does that apply to separation referenda? 4) I don't like the format. While it has the benefit of allowing the leaders to fully discuss their policies/make their points, there needs to be the opportunity by others to challenge them on it. 5) I can't imagine any Canadian changing or making up their mind after watching the non-debate. (Cross-posted at The Shotgun) Will anyone in the media report this? Russ Kuykendall observed this during the "non-debate" when the candidates were asked: "What's your vision of what Canada will be like in fifty years?": "... when the question came to Mr. Martin, second in the rotation, he spoke from the heart and persistently looked down to his notes in answering the question -- not once, but something like a half dozen times!" I told you so The Spectator blog reports that Nick Boles, a top aide to British Tory leader David Cameron, warned party activists not to expect a Conservative government to be a ... well, conservative government. No tax cuts. No school choice. The Speccie says: "However, the ideological right have been told in no uncertain terms: if the Cameron project works out, then you face another decade plus of political irrelevance, no money, and no influence." Champion's League Here's the draw for the second round: Chelsea v Barcelona Real Madrid v Arsenal Werder Bremen v Juventus Bayern Munich v AC Milan PSV Eindhoven v Lyons Ajax v Inter Milan Benfica v Liverpool Rangers v Villarreal My predictions: Chelsea, Real Madrid (unfortunately), Juventas, Bayern Munich (unfortunately), Lyons, Inter, Benfica, Villarreal. The Daily Telegraph has a short story. So does UEFA -- click on the links on the left-hand side for each match-up. Find that backbone, Stephen According to a Leger poll, 55% of Canadians want the issue of same-sex "marriage." The Edmonton Sun reports: "Considered a mistake by many pundits, Harper promised in the early days of the Christmas election campaign that a Conservative government would reopen the divisive debate and allow all MPs to vote freely on the issue." Listen to the people, not the pundits, and make a stand for marriage. I am convinced that they will find new Christian voters who have dropped out of electoral politics but are hungry for leaders who represent their worldview and shave non-Muslim minority voters concerned about SSM from the Liberals. But they want the issue to be front and centre not cryptically alluded to. I'd trade some urban votes for a slew of voters in rural eastern Ontario, the cities of southwestern Ontario and perhaps Atlantic Canada. American soccer Over at the Daily Standard, Wall Street Journal sports writer Stephen Barbara has an interesting piece on 1) a short history of the United States in the World Cup and 2) American soccer fans' confidence about the US in the World Cup, and 3) Old World resentment about such confidence. It is worth reading if you are interested in such things. Black flight from public schools Family News in Focus reports: "More and more black families are home-schooling their children. Many have determined that the public schools they fought so hard to get into in the 50’s and 60’s are letting them down by leaving morality out of their teaching." In total, 30,000 black children in the United States are home-schooled. There is even a National Black Home Educators Resource Association. Does the Left not want to understand Bush and Iraq? From Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column today: "People have asked, What would victory mean in Iraq? What would constitute victory? President Bush provided an answer: 'Victory will be achieved by meeting certain objectives: when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq’s democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can protect their own people, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against our country. These objectives — not timetables set by politicians in Washington — will drive our force levels in Iraq.' Got that? You may not like it — you may think it’s unconscionable — but it’s clear. And here comes Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.), saying, 'The American public, the Iraqi people, and our brave troops still don’t have any clarity about the U.S. military mission in Iraq.' Oh, come off it." I am convinced that the Left, having long ago stopped listening to conservatives in general and President George W. Bush in particular because they cannot win a debate with them, just talks ... and talks and talks, with little regard for the arguments of the other side. Or for that matter, reality. Stanley Tookie Williams, martyred hero The Los Angeles Times reports that friends of Stanley Tookie Williams, convicted and executed murderer and founder of the Crips, will have a large, public funeral -- "on the scale of the funeral for Rosa Parks." He will be cremated and his ashes will be spread in South Africa, it is hoped within the presence of the family of Nelson Mandela. At NRO Jack Dunphy observes: "So, in the eyes of Barbara Becnel (and, apparently, many others), a man who murdered four helpless people during the commission of two robberies, and who is sometimes credited with founding a street gang responsible for thousands of additional murders, is deserving of no less a tribute than that given to a pioneer of the civil-rights movement. This is what passes for enlightened thinking on the fringes of the American Left, which for years has lionized such homicidal thugs as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Yasser Arafat, and which now very noisily places Tookie Williams, like convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal before him, in this pantheon of heroes. How long will it be before someone proposes to name an elementary school after him?" Dunphy says he cannot understand how even capital punishment opponents hold up a convicted killer as a hero. How Bush is winning in the Middle East Victor Davis Hanson in NRO: "For the last three years we have seen a carbuncle swell as the old Vietnam War opposition rematerialized, with Michael Moore, the Hollywood elite, and Cindy Sheehan scaring the daylights out of the Democratic establishment that either pandered to or triangulated around their crazy rhetoric. The size of the Islamicist/Baathist insurrection caught the United States for a time off guard, as was true also of the sudden vehement slurs from our erstwhile allies in Europe, Canada, and Asia. Few anticipated that the turmoil Iraq would force the Syrians out of Lebanon, the Libyans to give up their WMDs, and the Egyptians to hold elections — and that all the killing, acrimony, and furor over these developments would begin to engulf the Middle East and threaten the old order. In the face of that growing ulcer of discontent, we quietly kept on killing terrorists, promoting elections in Iraq, pressuring Arab autocracies to democratize, and growing the economy." Just to remind ya. 'like Afghanistan before the Taliban took over' That's a Yemeni minister's description of the most failed state, Somalia, as reported by The Economist. It has no government and no central bank. Since 1991, a total of 13 attempts to form a government have failed. Illiteracy is high and disease is spreading. Militias battle amongst themselves throughout the country. Pirates have their way off the coastal regions. Jihadist groups operate within Somalia. That's why the provisional government of former warlord Abdullah Yusuf, based in Jowhar and without influence in the capital, Mogadishu, is so important. It is backed by the EU, but doesn't have the military to retake the capital or enforce the law, or the money to pay soldiers, let alone provide services. Still, there is a tentative ceasefire. The Economist reports: "If peace holds for a little longer, Mr Yusuf may start to look a little more like the real thing. Parliament might even meet, and proper elections be held in 2009. The danger is that opposing factions in Mogadishu, angry at being excluded from the government and worried that their roadblocks and other sources of revenue may be curtailed, may choose to fight it out instead. A rebel force rolled out of Mogadishu a fortnight ago towards Kismayu, a southern port. The warlords in charge of the forces say they mean to negotiate with Mr Yusuf in a neutral town, but doubters say they mean to fight." That doesn't sound promising but the West -- Canada included -- should offer financial assistance (at the minimum) to Yusuf. The downing of a helicopter 13 years ago probably spooks the US or the EU from offering military assistance but to not ensure that Yusuf has the resources to bring some semblance of stability to the region, especially considering that it could become a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists, is pure folly. Indeed, the US is skeptical of the whole project; they have little faith in Yusuf, they do not like how power if divvied up and fear that the country will continue producing jihadists. The Economist says that while Somalia's troubled neighbours (Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda) receive aid and the attention of diplomats, Somalia is ignored. That must end. Western diplomats must become involved in the process of restoring a state and developing legitimacy in the new regime. Nations must restore trade with the troubled state. And the United States must understand that the perfect can be the enemy of the good. In Somalia even a little improvement will make a big difference. Making immigrants American Robert P. George has a long post at On the Square (FT's blog) on how to make immigrants Americans. He says: "How do immigrants become Americans? Well, I’ve thought about it, and I think I have the answer. The key ingredient is gratitude. It all begins with gratitude. An immigrant’s feelings of gratitude to America for the liberty, security, and opportunity our nation affords him and his family is what leads to his appreciation of the ideals and institutions of American cultural, economic, and civic life. From this appreciation comes his belief in the goodness of American ideals and the value of the institutions by which they are effectuated. And from this belief arises his aspiration to become an American citizen together with his willingness to shoulder the responsibilities of citizenship and even to make great sacrifices for the nation, should it come to that." But: "... today not all immigrants become Americans or even want to become Americans. An ideology of multiculturalism—one that is fiercely promoted by opinion-shaping elites in many sectors of our society—has been embraced by some immigrants and will likely be embraced by many more. This is not simply a matter of hanging onto customs, traditions, and ethnic or religious identities and passing them on to the next generation. Immigrants have always done this, and it is fine and good—a source of strength for our nation. Rather, it is a matter of rejecting the idea of a primary and central political allegiance to the United States and its ideals and institutions. Often this rejection is rooted in a denial of the goodness of America and even an assertion of America’s wickedness. Sometimes it manifests itself in a view of American history as a history of nothing but racism, exploitation, chauvinism, abuse, imperialism, and other injustices. For people who view things this way, the United States is hardly an object of gratitude. On the contrary, it is the sinner, the debtor, which must abase itself before the world, make amends, and give recompense. It is not owed gratitude or allegiance; it owes. Putative victims of its oppression and their descendants are entitled to feast from its bounty with no gratitude or loyalty required in return." So: "... it is gratitude that launches immigrants on the path to becoming Americans, it is attitude that impedes and prevents immigrants from embarking on the journey. Grateful immigrants become Americans; immigrants with attitude do not." The issue has been diagnosed but there is no fix for this ailment. Well not directly. There is nothing to be done specifically to address the issue of how to make immigrants Americans. Professor George says the "attitude" comes from the culture of entitlement which corrupts not only the attitudes of immigrants but all Americans. America, says Professor George, must return to its ideals and promote them to all Americans. It is no small task to make not only immigrants but all citizens grateful to be American. What was America thinking? First Things editor Joseph Bottum wonders what America, a Jesuit publication, is doing running an ad for "Extra Virgin" -- a piece of 'art' in which an eight-and-a-half inch statue of the Virgin Mary is wrapped in a condom. As Bottum notes, "the issue appeared just in time for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception." Tacky. Tasteless. And while not typical of America, not completely surprising, either. Thursday, December 15, 2005
Quotidian "There is one metaphor of which the moderns are very fond; they are always saying, 'You can't put the clock back.' The simple and obvious answer is 'You can.' A clock, being a piece of human construction, can be restored by the human finger to any figure or hour. In the same way society, being a piece of human construction, can be reconstructed upon any plan that has ever existed." -- G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World 'You're going to relegate my history to a month?' That's Morgan Freeman's thoughts on Black History Month. The actor from such films as Seven and The Shawshank Redemption tells CBS' 60 Minutes this weekend: "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history." The Associated Press reports: "Black History Month has roots in historian Carter G. Woodson's Negro History Week, which he designated in 1926 as the second week in February to mark the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Woodson said he hoped the week could one day be eliminated — when black history would become fundamental to American history." That is hard to do when black history has been ghettoized. Ms. Mallick doesn't live here anymore The venomous Heather Mallick doesn't have a column at the Globe and Mail anymore. This is the AutoReply one receives in response from Ms. Mallick if you send a note to her Globe and Mail address: "From: Mallick, Heather To: ABCD EFGH Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 10:16 AM Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: Worthy commentaries for your reading pleasure (December 12) Dear Reader I quit writing my Globe columns on Dec. 1 in an ethical dispute. Yet for some reason, this email address lives on. I thank you for your letters. As for the rest of you: 1) No, I don't want a fake Rolex or even a real Rolex. 2) Good for you, inventors, but my Bought column would never have covered a red velvet strap to wrap around my garbage cans to stop the bags from slipping. This is Canada. We face the elements here. 3) If there are any Globe techies around, could you kill this email and also my access to Factiva?. I would greatly appreciate it. 4) Mail room people: Don't forward any more mail. You are free to return to sender or keep it for yourself. Warning: If the box feels like it has Chivas Regal in it, it more likely has seven bottles of Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion in new scents. Sorry! Happy holidays and New Year to all, Heather" Six reasons to read Jay Nordlinger Six great lines from today's Impromptus column by Jay Nordlinger: 1) About the Iranian president's Holocaust denial: "Many people were shocked by this. But such talk is routine in the Middle East (and elsewhere). Absolutely standard. No more remarkable than, 'Are you enjoying the weather'?" 2) On how Middle Easterners view the paper of record: "In the Muslim world, the New York Times is seen as an Israeli propaganda sheet. How’s that for misunderstanding?" 3) On the Democratic/Left position against the War on Terror: "Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have been so surprising that a liberal Democrat would support the overthrow of the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein regimes." 4) On the Left: "I hate to use the word 'liberal,' in conjunction with the Left, as I have above. But sometimes you have no choice — you just bow to the convention of your day. What word you have left for Locke, Hume, Smith, Jefferson, Hayek, and the rest of the boys, I don’t know." 5) On playwright Dario Fo writing a play about Cindy Sheehan: "One reason I like writing about Dario Fo is that I get to say 'the Nobel-winning Italian Communist clown'..." 6) On Fidel's island gulag: "Orating before students at the University of Havana the other day, Fidel Castro taunted Gov. Jeb Bush as fat. Judging from the looks of his political prisoners, Castro likes his men nice and thin." The amazing thing about Nordlinger is that today was not exceptional. Blair on trade liberalization I am not a big Tony Blair fan -- as much as he has been a close ally in the War on Terror, he has been a vandal at home attacking traditional freedoms and institutions with reckless abandon -- but he is good on free trade. Here is some of his speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at Guildhall: "There are some who argue that the poor will lose from an ambitious liberalising round. Far better to continue to offer them preferences - an old form of welfare. In one sense they are right. In the short term they may loose from some changes to the preference system if we do not take other actions. But ultimately the preference system is not the way forward. They stand to gain far more if we are bold; if we are confident; if we are ambitious. Developing countries could gain $47 billion in increased agricultural exports. We know the current system of preferences is not helping Africa. African trade with the EU has fallen over thirty years under the Lome and Cotonou Preferences. We also do not give enough market access to larger developing countries including countries like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa who are not LDCs. Yet the blunt reality is that it is they who will drive African economic recovery. And most of the world's poor live in India and China. They will benefit from an ambitious trade deal too." Alas, the world will not listen. Everyone talks about free trade but no one is willing to do anything about it. (HT: The Globalization Institute) A sure sign of progress in Iraq Reuters reports: "Saddam Hussein loyalists who violently opposed January elections have made an about-face as Thursday's polls near, urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack. In a move unthinkable in the bloody run-up to the last election, guerrillas in the western insurgent heartland of Anbar province say they are even prepared to protect voting stations from fighters loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq." Incredible. (HT: Sgt. Hook) Cloning success faked The Financial Times reported yesterday that Roh Sung-il, head of the Mizmedi infertility clinic which provided the human ova for ground-breaking cloning research, admitted that he was asked by Hwang Woo-suk, the discredited Seoul National University researcher, to (in the words of the FT) "fake data to make it look like there were 11 stem cell colonies." Nine of 11 stem cell lines that the two claimed to create in a Science article earlier this year were fake and there are questions about the other two. With Hwang's veracity now in doubt, there are also questions about his claims to have cloned a cow and a dog. FT reports: "'Professor Hwang admitted to fabrication,' Dr Roh told MBC after a meeting with the scientist earlier on Thursday. Prof Hwang also confessed 'there were no embryonic stem cells' because all colonies had since died in the lab, Dr Roh reported. They had agreed to ask Science to withdraw the paper." Last month Hwang admitted to unethically acquiring human eggs in his research. Yet somehow no matter how discredited scientists such as Hwang become, the science they are doing is never questioned. A great day for Iraq Bill Roggio has a few photos including one of a massive lineup to vote. He concludes his post thusly: "Barwana, once part of Zarqawi self declared 'Islamic Republic of Iraq,' is now the scene of al-Qaeda’s greatest nightmare: Muslims exercising their constitutional right to chose their destiny." Canadian politics seems ... oh ... so inconsequential compared to the vote in Iraq. The case for fixed election dates You can access Harry Milner's IRPP study on the issue by going to the Institute for Research on Public Policy and clicking on the links under Electoral Reform. He says that the time is now considering that several provinces have them/are considering them and that the opposition has called for them. I'm dubious. I think that Canadians will have to experience fixed election dates for several provincial election cycles before accepting the idea federally although I will be glad to be proved wrong. I will be if the opposition makes the case as persuasively as Milner does. Litigating healthcare policy In the current Fraser Forum, McGill's Christopher Manfredi warns that using the courts to challenge healthcare policy is a mistake even if it forces necessary change that politicians do not have the courage to enact on their own. Two noteworthy points. 1) Noting that the Supreme Court in both the Auton and Chaoulli decisions mentioned the Kirby Senate Committee and Romanow Royal Commission reports a total of 40 times -- reports that the lower courts had not and could not consider in the decisions that were ultimately overturned by the SCOC -- Manfredi observes that the "only opportunity for external assessment of the two reports came during one-day hearings." Furthermore, regarding the Kirby committee, Manfredi asks: "Consider for a moment the significance of the fact that 10 senators had more impact on public policy as intervenors before the Supreme Court than as parliamentarians." 2) Healthcare policy should not be treated as a clash of rights which is what the Supreme Court adjudicates. Manfredi says: "The question of what kind of health care system Canada should have is simply not one to which the constitution provides an answer." Enough with the smug Canadian attitude that we are more caring that Americans The Fraser Institute's Generosity Index shows more Americans are giving to charity than Canadians. Nearly half of US states had a higher percentage of income filers donate than did the best Canadian province (Manitoba) and the percentage of aggregate income donated was twice as high in the US than Canada (1.57% compared to 0.7%). Quotidian "Even on the most exalted throne in the world we are only sitting on our own bottom." -- Montaigne, The Essays of Michel de Montaigne Election reform is an election loser An elected Senate and fixed election dates is good policy but bad politics. Greg Staples talks about their benefits which include adding legitimacy to our balkanized politics. But there is no way voters in Ontario or Quebec will go for it; an elected Senate sounds too much like a Triple E Senate which means less power for them. And fixed election dates, despite the fact that the first and third largest province now have them, sounds too American. So that balkanization that makes this a great reform will ensure that it never happens. The only big problem I have with Stephen Harper's reforms is that I don't think the federal government has any business in how party's choose their candidates and thus any limit on parachute candidates, as odious as they are, is an invitation to more government than the Conservative leader should be calling for. If only things were as bad as Ed is reporting Edward Morrissey writes a nice summary of the "Liberal Party Meltdown" for the Daily Standard. Yet, the Liberals still lead in the polls. The future debate? Camilla Cavendish writes in the London Times that the young are becoming reluctant to foot the healthcare bill for the old. Years ago a Reform Party functionary told me that the party's best bet for the future would be to "declare war on the elderly" by promising huge tax cuts for the middle aged, middle class that were funded by curtailing healthcare for the elderly and their pensions. His ideas were dismissed even if she wasn't. But with more people surviving their first surgeries and bouts with various illnesses and thus growing older, the bureaucrats might calculate that rationing care for the elderly is the only option open to them, wedded as they are to third-party payer healthcare. It is conceivable that in Canada sometime in the future, the program that the nation rallies around as central to our national identity might someday divide us. Left v. Hillary In what I hope will be a recurring feature here at Sobering Thoughts is the latest in leftists criticizing Hillary Clinton's "pandering" to the political centre. In this case, it's Washington Post class dunce Richard Cohen complaining about her co-sponsoring a bill banning flag burning: "Whatever the case, though, the flag bill along with other examples of Clinton's willingness to court political reactionaries raises disturbing questions about who, exactly, she is. Consistency is not always to be admired in a politician, but when a supposed liberal is one of only two senators to sponsor a bill to restrict freedom of speech, then we are talking about something basic. If this is a pander, it is in the worst possible taste. The First Amendment is where you simply do not go. It is sacred. It protects our most cherished rights -- religion, speech, press and assembly -- and while I sometimes turn viscerally angry when I see the flag despoiled, my emotions are akin to what I feel when neo-Nazis march. Repugnant or not, popular or not, it is all political speech. Her sponsorship of the flag measure calls for reconsideration all around -- either by Hillary Clinton and her support of the flag bill or by liberals and their support of her." There have been complaints about Hillary's political posturing but this is the first mainstream liberal to call for reconsidering support for her. Beer and popcorn politics LifeSite has what appears to be a regular feature, The Beer and Popcorn Report, which follows everything related to Scott Reid's comment. Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Too cute or lost in space Greg Gutfeld writes this nonsense in the Huffington Post about the execution of Stanley Tookie Williams: "... if we're going to execute a man because he wrote children's books, then who's next?" I went to the Huffingblog for the first time in four months because of a link at The Corner. Never again. Sadly it has to be said With the recent spate of teacher-student "relationships," Kathleen Parker figures it is time to remind adults of the reason not to have sex with children and young teens: "Adults do not have sex with minors. Well-adjusted grown-ups know this instinctively. Implicit in the job description of 'adult' is that you take care of children and protect the innocent. Inarguably, a kid who has been roaming the Earth fewer than 18 years doesn't know diddly about the complicated consequences of romantic involvement with an adult. We who know better are supposed to know better." It's about trust. It's about authority. It's about not playing with the psychological health of 16-year-old girls even if they dress like prostitutes. It's about drawing lines before it is impossible to say no to NAMBLA or the Rene Guyon Society. What the federal election is all about In a commentary for the Ashbrook Institute, University of Lethbridge political science professor John von Heyking explains the Canadian election for American readers. The conclusion at the end of this longish piece has this astute observation: "The key to victory, it seems, is to befriend parents. Parents are the electoral constituency most concerned about the future of the country, and are the ones making the day-to-day decisions about the political, economic, and cultural future of the country. Moreover, by putting childcare at the center of the election, the Conservatives and Liberals illuminate their fundamental ideological differences. The Liberals think the state guarantees our future while the Conservatives think civil society is best equipped to make these decisions. As Richard Ball wrote in a letter to the National Post, 'what Canadians are being asked to vote on in this election is themselves'." My goodness A web-exclusive commentary by Kwame McKenzie for the London Times complains about the stereotypes in King Kong: "The story feeds into all the colonial hysteria about black hyper-sexuality." Please. This type of thing belongs in the New York Times, not the London Times. Quotidian "Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all." -- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Eugene McCarthy's legacy The Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. George F. Will writes in the Washington Post: "The sacramental status of Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary as the first two nominating events testifies to the power of the mere passage of time to sanctify the accidental, even the unreasonable." How? McCarthy "beat" LBJ in 1968 in New Hampshire. By beat, I mean that he garnered 42% of the vote against the incumbent, a blow from which Johnson assumed he could not recover. Johnson had 50% of the vote (49.6% to be exact), all write-ins because he wasn't on the primary ballot. Still, Johnson bowed out of the Democratic presidential primaries. Will says, "McCarthy's 1968 achievement elevated New Hampshire's primary to the status it has subsequently enjoyed." An accident of history -- the surprisingly good showing of disgruntled Democrat -- changed history and the way Americans practiced politics. Of course, McCarthy did not win the Democratic presidential nomination. McCarthy was soon being beaten in the primaries by MFEMFE Kennedy, who would have surely won the nomination had he not be assassinated. Hubert H. Humphrey was chosen at the Democratic National Convention to represent the Democrats against Republican Richard Nixon. Coincidentally, as Will notes, McCarthy's "death occurred the day the Democratic Party gingerly suggested modifying its primary schedule in a way that might diminish New Hampshire's potency." The idea was nixed precisely because of the sanctification of the accidental. So when two tiny states, far from the more populous and economically vibrant East and West coasts, are helping to determine the presidential candidates in 2008 -- and probably 2012, 2016, 2020, etc... -- think of Eugene McCarthy's moment in the spotlight. And blame him, if you wish. World Cup controversy A report from Italy claims that German officials rigged the draw on Friday to ensure Italy had a tough draw. Former German soccer star Lothar Matthaus apparently picked up a ball and put it back down instead of drawing it from the pot. Sky Italia says the balls were heated or cooled so that Matthaus would know to pick more difficult opponents for the Italian side. The Azzuri must face Ghana, the United States and the Czech Republic in the first round. I hate to think this is true but considering the corruption within FIFA, and the organization's anti-Italian bias, it is a distinct possibility. Monday, December 12, 2005
Colombia says no to Western imperialism Human Events reports that the Colombian Constitutional Court refused to hear two cases that could have resulted in throwing out the Latin American country's ban on abortion. The legal challenge to Colombia's pro-life laws were organized by Women’s Link Worldwide, a group of Ivy league feminist lawyers that seek to thwart the democratic process by liberalizing abortion law through the courts. Other western NGOs and organizations involved in the case included the Ford Foundation, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Catholics [sic] for a Free Choice. I told you so For more than a year now I've been saying that Hillary Clinton will have difficulty getting the Democratic presidential nod because many liberals are not happy with her move (read: positioning) to the political centre. Recently, Nation, one of the country's largest circulation magazines of liberal opinion stated in its editorial that it will not support any Democratic presidential candidate who does not come out clearly for withdrawing the troops from Iraq immediately. In other words, one of the country's most important liberal magazine will not be endorsing Hillary Clinton. Now, actor/activist George Clooney criticized her for making a "political" decision on Iraq rather than opposing President George W. Bush and says he prefers Illinois Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Clinton will not be the candidate of the left-wing of the party; her hand-wringing over abortion will cost her the votes of feminists; blacks feel no kinship with this elitist white girl. She does not have the support of the base and her nomination is in serious doubt. Remind everyone of Liberal arrogance -- distribute this video Proud to be Canadian has a great video on the beer and popcorn comment and John Duffy's declaration that he stands behind Scott Reid's condescending comments. Beer, popcorn and childcare As everyone knows, Paul Martin's top aide Scott Reid demonstrated that typical Liberal arrogance and condescension when he said that parents would blow the $1200 Conservatives would return to families on beer and popcorn. (Stephen Taylor shows where Reid would spend his $25 a week by pointing to his expense accounts claims: "... pubs make up the majority of Scott Reid's hospitality expenses. Shame on Scott Reid for suggesting that parents would blow their own money on beer and popcorn when Scott Reid is certainly spending lots of taxpayer cash on um... whatever you buy at pubs.") But aside from the arrogance of supposing that government knows best, Reid's comments betray the nature of the daycare subsidy the Liberals propose. Liberals, led by Social Development Minister Ken Dryden, criticized the Conservative plan as insufficient, noting that the average family spends $5000 on institutionalized daycare. Wonder where they find such daycare: in Toronto, non-subsidized daycare runs $35-$55 a day -- or at minimum of $8,400 a year. (Five years ago, my family's yearly childcare bill was over $7,500.) So the Liberal plan is also insufficient. Still, assuming that the Liberals are seeking to reduce existing non-subsidized care by $5000 a year, won't those families have $100 a week to spend on beer and popcorn? But the reality is that the Liberal plan does not actually reduce the average daycare-using family's costs. The subsidy does not go the parents but to provinces who will decide how to divvy up the funding, but mostly it will go directly to daycare centres. For the money to achieve Dryden and Martin's goal of increasing access, the federal funding should be used to expand the number of daycare spaces and/or subsidize existing daycare spots for current users. From what I am told, how the program is setup does not guarantee this; the money can be used to increase daycare worker salaries, physical improvements to daycare centres, or create new subsidized spots for the poor but little will be done to alleviate the out-of-pocket costs of middle class parents, the families Dryden and Martin deign to help. Same old Liberal tactics, new target A Halifax Herald editorial notes that while the Liberals are no longer demonizing Stephen Harper, they are targeting Gilles Duceppe. The paper even calls on Jean Lapierre to apologize for dropping the Nazi-bomb. Carroll Campbell, RIP Carroll Campbell, who served as governor of South Carolina from 1987-1995, died last week. He helped create a business-friendly environment that led to that state's economic prosperity in the 1990s. John Monk, a columnist with The State, summaries the reason for his electoral success: the three Es (education, the economy and the environment). These themes resonated with South Carolinians and he would have won re-election in 1994 if he were not term-limited. Great ad The GOP ad on retreat and defeat is not a strategy is an excellent of push-back that is incredibly effective. Discussing this ad on Friday, Rush Limbaugh was predicting the self-destruction of the Democratic Party between now and the 2006 mid-term election. If the Republicans continue to fight back with ads like this, the GOP won't have anything to worry about. Sunday, December 11, 2005
The Passion of Narnia I'm not sure why some devotees of C.S. Lewis have said that the Christian message of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, has been diminished. At times, watching The Chronicles of Narnia it is impossible not to see Christ in Aslan, especially from the moment the Lion promises to sacrifice his life in exchange for Edmund's, right through to while Susan and Lucy walk with Aslan part way to his death, his humiliation before the execution, the destruction of the temple where Aslan was killed and his resurrection. It's as if Mel Gibson were directing a cast of animals and English school children. I exaggerate but only to make the point that anyone familiar with the story of the Passion will not miss some of the Christian symbolism. I have had my doubts about the project since I first heard about it (although they were lessened when I saw the promos for it during the Summer) -- doubts well expressed by Bill Wichterman: "I doubted a film could capture the fantasy world of Narnia with its fauns and centaurs, dryads, talking beavers, and a lion incarnating the maker of the universe. I expected HollywoodÂ?s insatiable desire to be 'edgy' to propel the film into the violent and macabre, inappropriate for the school-aged kids for whom Lewis wrote his masterpieces. And most importantly, I doubted that the essential story of betrayal, sacrificial love, and redemption would survive Hollywood censors. I was very wrong. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is magnificent." I couldn't agree more. (It seems that Russ Kuykendall does, too.) Both of my sons -- they're eight and fifteen -- both enjoyed it. The battle scenes are exciting but not gory; the story moves; the characters are vivid; the message uplifting. I can't recommend it enough. As a movie, it's no Lord of the Rings, but it is still a great family film. We plan to see it in theatres again. Quotidian "Over half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened'." -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Templeton Prize address (1983) Fighting disease The Campaign for Fighting Diseases has a blog. Here's what they have to say about Africa's homegrown problems: "We were lucky enough to have the Ugandan John Kilama from the Global Biosciences Development Institute over for lunch today. John argued that most of the debate about health in Africa, which focuses on such things as the cost of medicines and intellectual property, is totally wide of the mark. In fact, the African healthcare crisis is completely homegrown. John pointed out the egregious taxes and tariffs most African governments impose onto imported medicines, as well as the daedalean complexity of getting a new drug registered before it can be sold. More fundamentally, a mixture of political and economic oppression, as well as general governmental incompetence, keeps most Africans poor and unable to afford the kind of living conditions that most of us enjoy in the west. This is the reason why diseases such as diarrhoea and chest infections kill so many." So: topple Mugabe, cure diarrhoea. GCH v. ST Here's the reply to my reaction to Publius' response to my post about the need for conservatives to be conservative. Alexander Solzhenitsyn Happy birthday to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who turned 87 today. No one was able to dispel the illusions of the 20th century as he did. From his 1970 speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature: "From time immemorial man has been made in such a way that his vision of the world, so long as it has not been instilled under hypnosis, his motivations and scale of values, his actions and intentions are determined by his personal and group experience of life. As the Russian saying goes, "Do not believe your brother, believe your own crooked eye." And that is the most sound basis for an understanding of the world around us and of human conduct in it. And during the long epochs when our world lay spread out in mystery and wilderness, before it became encroached by common lines of communication, before it was transformed into a single, convulsively pulsating lump - men, relying on experience, ruled without mishap within their limited areas, within their communities, within their societies, and finally on their national territories. At that time it was possible for individual human beings to perceive and accept a general scale of values, to distinguish between what is considered normal, what incredible; what is cruel and what lies beyond the boundaries of wickedness; what is honesty, what deceit. And although the scattered peoples led extremely different lives and their social values were often strikingly at odds, just as their systems of weights and measures did not agree, still these discrepancies surprised only occasional travellers, were reported in journals under the name of wonders, and bore no danger to mankind which was not yet one. But now during the past few decades, imperceptibly, suddenly, mankind has become one - hopefully one and dangerously one - so that the concussions and inflammations of one of its parts are almost instantaneously passed on to others, sometimes lacking in any kind of necessary immunity." Capital punishment and the sanctity of human life Jeff Jacoby's Boston Globe column on the American bishops' letter on capital punishment is excellent. There are several important points worth noting. The first is the bishops' breaking with Judeo-Christian tradition -- including Biblical teaching -- in favouring the abolition of capital punishment: "I am neither Catholic nor a theologian, and I wouldn't presume to teach religion to a bishop. But the point of view the bishops express is sharply at odds with the Judeo-Christian tradition in which American law is rooted. It is no coincidence that the United States is the only advanced Western nation in which (some) murderers are still put to death. The United States was founded by religious believers; its culture to this day remains deeply influenced by faith and the Bible. And on this point, biblical tradition is unambiguous: For premeditated murder, death is an appropriate punishment. No passage in the Bible -- Old or New Testament -- disapproves of the death penalty, which is why the bishops do not cite one. The Sixth Commandment (in Catholic reckoning, the Fifth) is clearly no bar to capital punishment. The penalty for those who violate 'You shall not murder' (Exodus 20:13) is made explicit just a few lines later: 'Whoever strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death' (Exodus 21:12). The text goes on to specify that this applies only to deliberate murder, not unintentional killing. Accidents are not capital crimes. For a willful killer, there can be no sanctuary: 'Take him even from My altar and put him to death' (Exodus 21:14)." You would think that bishops would have a greater familiarity with the Bible than they do. Jacoby goes on to say that when the bishops claim that the modern state has recourse to other, non-lethal methods of protecting society from heinous murderers, they ignore the fact that deterrence, protection of society, and rehabilitation are all side issues to what punishment is really about: justice -- what does the murderer deserve for his wrong. Blood cries out for blood not years in a jail cell. When a person takes the life of another, he loses the right to be among the living. This leads to the conclusion that I have long held and with which Jacoby finishes his column: "But Judeo-Christian teaching has always been clear: When murderers keep their lives, human blood is cheapened. That is why reverence for life and capital punishment belong to the same ethical tradition. Civilized communities have not only the right but the responsibility to execute murderers." In other words, killing criminals is moral obligation of the state. Those jurisdictions that eschew capital punishment are decadent and have no moral authority to judge others -- other nations or the wrong-doers within their own boundaries. I am at odds with others in the pro-life community over this question but frankly I see their abhorrence of capital punishment as devaluing of human life as abortion. 'If an election were held today ...' in Britain The Guardian reports that the David Cameron-led Tories would beat the Tony Blair-led Labour Party 37%-35%. Of course, the election isn't going to be held today and the lead is as much an indication of the positive press coverage of Cameron over the past few weeks as it is an embrace of the Tory Party he leads. Steyn on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mark Steyn makes an excellent point in today's Chicago Sun-Times column: When you are dealing with a Holocaust-denying dictator who wants to relocate an entire people to the country where the Holocaust occurred, and that dictator has or is acquiring nuclear weapons, the niceties of diplomatic language is a relic from the pre-democratic, pre-television age that we can ill afford. New York Times laments decline of the Bloody Crossroads Princeton historian Sean Wilentz writes in the books section of the New York Times about how fiction authors no longer participate in politics. They might, he says, write about political subjects, but not about "participatory politics," showing it to be a noble calling, and even less frequently do authors take part in the political process themselves: "... today's novels rarely take the grubby business of ordinary politics, past or present, as a subject, let alone an activity in which their authors might participate." Wilentz concludes his essay by succinctly summarizing his worrying concern that there is a disconnect between politics and literature: "Only a few prominent recent writers - from Gore Vidal in 'Burr' to John Updike in 'Memories of the Ford Administration,' which drew, in part, on his 1974 play, 'Buchanan Dying' - have shown any affinity for the high politics of the Jacksonian era. (Updike is especially acute on the Jacksonian sensibility, shaped by his preoccupation with Hawthorne and his family ties to Jackson's party and to what he has called 'the dark soil of old Pennsylvania politics.') The idea of today's Democrats or Republicans sponsoring a serious literary magazine boggles the mind. In a time of polarization as acute as in the 1830's, our writers make all sorts of political pronouncements, but it is hard to imagine any of them getting deeply involved in party politics per se, or even (maybe Updike aside) portraying the business of politics in a serious or sympathetic light. This disaffection from party politics is not, of course, limited to writers. But the collapse of the old alliance between politics and literature indicates how much American democracy has changed since the Jacksonian era, and not entirely for the better. Democracy has been broadened far beyond what Jackson himself could have imagined, but our politicians' prose is reduced to, at best, hollow sentimentalism and, at worst, a manipulative semi-literacy of a kind that would have made the supposed barbarian Andrew Jackson wince. The memory of a time when American party politics was worthy of a writer's respect, let alone professional involvement, has almost disappeared." I have three quick reactions to this piece: 1) Imagine what the New York Times would say about a political party-sponsored literary magazine? It would have zero credibility -- at least the Republian-sponsored publication would -- among the Times (and others) as nothing but partisan ranting. 2) I would rather see authors engaged in the political discussions, writing about ideas, than participating in partisan political activities, as the public face of a party. 3) Wilentz focuses on the pre-Civil War period and leaves the impression that there have been little connection between political parties and writers. But in the 1940s and 1950s there were several authors who had ties to the Communist Party; the Times likes to pretend that Senator McCarthy was chasing ghosts and that there weren't really communists, but there were. Saturday, December 10, 2005
GCH disagrees Publius at Gods of the Copybook Headings says of my post in which I argue that conservatives must be conservative, that I make an erroneous assumption, namely that the electorate must be conservative to elect a Thatcher or Reagan or Harris. Of course, it helps. I also think that Canadians are more conservative than the usual media narrative (Canada is cool, says The Economist by which it means generally liberal) and offer as evidence these two facts: the same province that elected gave nearly every seat to Jean Chretien in 1993, 1997 and 2000, gave Mike Harris two majorities, while the generally statist Quebec is, along with Alberta, the province most open to private healthcare. Do I think that conservatives will easily win by running a clearly articulated conservative campaign? No. But the move to the centre over the past half-decade hasn't worked. When Conservatives are not clearly conservative, there are several reasons they lose: 1) Voters don't believe their moderation ("hidden agenda") and vote against them; 2) Voters instinctly feel that there is something wrong with conservatism when Conservative politicians (leaders) are seen to eschew their own principles and they, the voters, choose the Liberals by default; 3) The failure to provide a clear alternative to liberalism gives voters no reason to embrace change -- they prefer real liberals over the posturing ones. There are also pragmatic reasons for encouraging Conservatives to be conservative, not the least of which is that if the party wins, they must have a mandate for their policies. If they don't run on a conservative platform, it is difficult to implement one without doing serious long-term damage to the small and large "c" conservative brand. Another pragmatic argument is that if it is true that the electorate is not conservative, it is difficult to imagine it happening without political leadership. As much as the "conservative infrastructure" in America -- the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation and National Review -- is credited with the Reagan Revolution and Gingrich's Contract with America, there was also the necessary leadership of Barry Goldwater. Yes, he lost in 1964 but he also forced conservative ideas onto the national stage. The AEI or NR could not have done that, at least not on the same scale. At some point Canada needs its Goldwater: a candidate ready to lose but willing to encourage Canadians to think outside the tidy, conventional, liberal box within which almost all political discourse takes place. Quotidian "WISE MAN: And whither shall I go when I am dead? ANGEL: You have denied there is a purgatory, Therefore that gate is closed; you have denied There is a heaven, and so that gate is closed. WISE MAN: Where then? For I have said there is no hell. ANGEL: Hell is the place of those who have denied; They find there what they planted and what dug, A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing, And wander there and drift, and never cease Wailing for substance." -- W.B. Yeats, "The Hour Glass" Trustgate M.K. Braaten and Angry in the GWN are all over Trustgate. Braaten has the gist of the story in two 'graphs: "According to STOCKTRENDS.ca, the day before the Goodale income trust announcement, the trading volume of Medisys Income Trust was 226,500, with a value of $2,604,750, average trade was $37,750, and a total of 68 transactions. According to StockTrends.ca, this stock was listed as trading at 'Unusual Volumes.' Click here for the report. The volume of shares traded for Paul Martin linked Medisys Income Trust shares the day before the Income Trust announcement is way to high to be a ‘co-incidence’. The volume increased 3400% from the prior day, and the following day, dropped back down about the same amount ... These questions should be answered by the proper authorities. Huge spikes in trading, similar to this, are flagged by agencies of the markets which specialise in looking for this. Nonetheless, I think the Ontario Securities Exchange commission’s reputation could be irreparably harmed if they do not commence an investigation into this issue. The red flags are everywhere; the evidence is far too suspicious." Brison doesn't know the Charter The Guardian (Charlottetown) reported on Friday (sorry no link): "Public Works Minister Scott Brison says he holds no ill will against Cardigan MP Lawrence MacAulay for voting against same-sex marriage. MacAulay invited Brison to Prince Edward Island Thursday to speak at his nominating convention. 'The fact is we had a free vote and he expressed his views in that free vote,' Brison said in an interview with The Guardian Thursday. 'But I can tell you that Lawrence MacAulay also believes in the Charter of Rights and Lawrence MacAulay does not believe in using the notwithstanding clause. He expressed his view on that issue in the House. He would not support what Stephen Harper called for last week'." So using the notwithstanding clause, part of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Section 33), would betray a "belief" in the Charter? Sometimes I can't follow the arguments Liberals make. Me on TV Reminder that I am on Behind the Story on Sunday night at 7pm. We talk about the Canadian election and capital punishment among other topics. Sparks almost flew when I said that capital punishment opponents were "fundamentally dishonest." But the show appears on a Christian network (CTS) so civility won out. The looming Cameron disaster London Times columnist Anatole Kaletsky on why David Cameron will fail: "The exaggerated praise that Mr Cameron has enjoyed for a competent but totally unexceptional performance, first as candidate and now as opposition leader, will reinforce his faith in a strategy that a more dispassionate analysis would reveal to be seriously misconceived. Worse still — and even more reminiscent of John Major’s ERM disaster — Mr Cameron’s misguided strategy is becoming so closely identified with his self-definition as a politician, that any deviation would look like a personal humiliation. What is this new belief the defines Cameron Conservatism? Like all great heresies the Cameron credo appears in many guises — that the Tories must be the party of public services, not tax cuts; Mr Cameron is the natural heir to Tony Blair and new Labour; Labour under Gordon Brown will veer to the Left and abandon the political centre ground — but all these erroneous beliefs stem from one fundamental misconception: the idea that the Tories will be returned to government on the basis of what they look like, rather than what they stand for." I have said this many times. Conservatives win they are or appear unabashedly conservative, liberals when they pretend to be what they are not. The last 25 years proves this. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mike Harris and Newt Gingrich won. George W. Bush was perceived to be more conservative than he really is and was re-elected in 2004 despite enormous obstacles. Joe Clark, Bob Dole, John Major and Ernie Eves all lost when they lurched to the centre. On the Left: Tony Blair and Bill Clinton affixed the adjective "New" to their party brands to fool voters that they were different, that they were centrist. Jean Chretien and MFEM Martin ran as fiscal moderates and Dalton McGuinty felt compelled to sign a pledge not to raise taxes. Cameron -- and Stephen Harper, John Tory and whoever is the Republican presidential candidate in 2008 -- must run as conservatives. The reason liberals run in the centre is that liberalism is totally discredited and they would lose if they were honest. It is not that the centre is the political place to be but rather that liberals need to move closer to conservatism to be palatable to voters; why would conservatives move away from where even liberals know they themselves should be? Cameron (and Harper) will lose if they doesn't learn this -- and soon. World Cup 2006 The groups were picked yesterday. Group A Germany Costa Rica Poland Ecuador Group B England Paraguay Trinidad and Tobago Sweden Group C Argentina Côte d'Ivoire Serbia and Montenegro Netherlands Group D Mexico Iran Angola Portugal Group E Italy Ghana United States Czech Republic Group F Brazil Croatia Australia Japan Group G France Switzerland Korea Republic Togo Group H Spain Ukraine Tunisia Saudi Arabia Brazil, France, Germany and Spain look to have exceedingly easy groupings. The battle to win Group C should be fantastic with third ranked Netherlands and fourth ranked Argentina. Both are virtually assured of moving to the second round but the battle for first should be good. A great battle in Group E with the Czech Republic, United States and Italy all vying for a birth in the second round. They are ranked second, eighth and twelfth overall, respectively. One will not advance. Ghana could be a spoiler; they have talent and could unexpectedly tie or even upset one of the the other sides. The endearing Chuck Strahl Conservative MP and blogger Chuck Strahl said yesterday: "Another day, another lunch on the road. My cholestrol level has almost fallen to normal so I'm feeling weak. It's time to get some trans-fats and recharge the system." I find this amazing. 99% of politicians would never joke about this, so strong are politically correct anti-obesity pieties today. I would not be surprised if his NDP opponents lash out against him for such comments. Quote of the day Cyril Bagin relates a Slovakian proverb -- or at least a proverb he heard while in Slovakia: "We need to know something about everything and everything about something." That might not be possible but it is worth striving for. UN admits its ineffectiveness The United Nations news service reported yesterday: "Despite a sharper United Nations focus on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, civilians continue to suffer devastating 'collateral damage,' as well as targeted violence, increasingly in the form of sexual abuse, forced displacement, terrorism and extreme economic deprivation, requiring ever-evolving protective mechanisms, the Security Council was told today. 'In the five years since the adoption of Security Council resolution 1296 (2000) there have been new challenges to the safety and well-being of civilian populations, and the tools that we have at our disposal to address these concerns need to be developed accordingly,' Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in his latest report on the matter, which the Council discussed today." Wow, what an admission. Of course, sometimes the sexual abuse of civilians comes at the hands of UN peacekeepers, but even when the UN is not the problem they are powerless to help. Does Saddam still control Iraq? Considering how he is treated during his trial, it certainly seems so. Indeed, his behaviour -- behaviour permitted by the new and immature Iraqi courts, give an all new meaning to the term show trial. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer says that the Saddam Hussein trial is sending all the wrong messages: "... Hussein should be brought in wearing prison garb, perhaps in shackles, just for effect. And why was he given control of the script? He shouts, interrupts and does his Mussolini histrionics unmolested. Instead of the press being behind a glass wall, it is Hussein who should be. Better still, placed in a glass booth, like Eichmann, like some isolated specimen of deranged humanity, symbolically and physically cut off from the world of normal human values. Instead, he struts. And we are witness to a political test of wills between the new Iraq represented by an as-yet incompetent judicial system and the would-be tyrant-for-life defiantly raising once again the banner of Baathism, on a worldwide stage afforded him by us. Until now the Baathists who constitute the bulk of this Sunni insurgency had no symbolic presence, no political platform, no visible leadership. We have now given that to them, gratis." Krauthammer has a very fine column on the trial and what it means. Instead of shooting him like the dog he is (to use Krauthammer's phrase), he was given a trial to provide a witness to the atrocities for he is responsible. Then he must be executed to assure the Iraqi people he can never commit them again. The psychological damage done to the Iraqi people when he is allowed to perform before the court is indefensible. Which is why Iraq National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaiethe told the Washington Times that the chief judge in the trial, Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, must be dismissed from the case. Friday, December 09, 2005
Social conservatism in Canadan and the US I have a piece in Comment today on some of the reasons why Canadian social conservatives have not been able to replicate the success of the Religious Right in the United States. Here's the gist of the article: "So what are the underlying reasons for the absence of a politically viable social conservatism in Canada? In fact, there are many reasons. But three stand out as significant and (often) inter-related: 1) the lack of conservative infrastructure such as foundations, think tanks, and publications; 2) the failure to organize and become part of a larger conservative coalition; 3) Charter-era politics. All these factors contribute to the poverty of public discourse on moral issues." I conclude: "It seems near impossible for social conservatives to begin making inroads in Canadian politics, but the marriage question may have begun a political awakening among people of faith. The attention being paid to the need for a conservative infrastructure is a development that could bare fruit. Whatever the hurdles social conservatives face, it is important that they do not give up and that they begin the hard work of organizing, becoming intellectually equipped and politically active. After all, as Micklethwait and Wooldridge note, the infrastructure in place that helped get Reagan and the Bushes elected over the past twenty-five years was created in the 1940s and 1950s. It will take a long time for the seeds that need to be planted to grow into something that is politically viable." Thursday, December 08, 2005
UN reaction to violence in Darfur UN Secretary General Kofi Annan voiced his "grave concern" about ethnic violence in the Darfur region of Sudan. Grave concern. Wow, that's getting almost serious enough to start the hand-wringing. Quotidian "If it be certain, as Galen says-- And sage Hippocrates holds as much-- "That those afflicted by doubts and dismays Are mightily helped by a dead man's touch," Then, be good to us, stars above! Then, be good to us, herbs below! We are afflicted by what we can prove, We are distracted by what we know. So-ah, so! Down from your heaven or up from your mould Send us the hearts of our Fathers of old!" -- Rudyard Kipling, "Our Fathers of Old" More on Lennon Two more pieces on John Lennon. One is Mark Steyn's New Criterion review of the Broadway production of Lennon. Included in the review are two bits worth noting. First is the how ingrained Imagine is in the culture: "'Imagine' is an amazing song: an article of faith for people who have none, it’s astonishing how deeply it’s penetrated in a mere three decades to every corner of the culture. At my daughter’s school a couple of Christmases back, it was the grand finale of the holiday concert. The music department had thoughtfully printed the lyrics on the program, and the teacher, inviting the parents to sing along, declared the number summed up what we were all 'praying' for: 'Imagine there’s no heaven/ It’s easy if you try/ No hell below us/ Above us only sky/ Imagine all the people/ Living for today.' Ah, that’s the message of the season, isn’t it? Happy holidays!" Steyn also notes Lennon response to a question about benefit concerts during an interview with Playboy: "PLAYBOY: What about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit? LENNON: I don’t want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death. Every one of them was a mess or a rip-off. PLAYBOY: What about the Bangladesh concert, in which George and other people such as Dylan performed? LENNON: Bangladesh was caca. It’s all a rip-off. So forget about it. All of you who are reading this, don’t bother sending me all that garbage about, “Just come and save the Indians, come and save the blacks, come and save the war veterans.” Anybody I want to save will be helped through our tithing, which is ten percent of whatever we earn. PLAYBOY: But that doesn’t compare with what one promoter, Sid Bernstein, said you could raise by giving a world-wide televised concert—playing separately, as individuals, or together, as the Beatles. He estimated you could raise over $200,000,000 in one day. $200,000,000 to a poverty-stricken country in South America. LENNON: Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn’t mean a damn thing. After they’ve eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I’m not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway." Kathy Shaidle reminds readers about Joel Engel's dissection of Imagine in the Weekly Standard in 2003: "For millions of people around the world, the song's three minutes of bumper-sticker slogans describe the best of all possible worlds. But before the faithful gather in memoriam to light candles and sing 'Imagine' together, as they always do on the anniversary, a few of them might want to stop and consider that the lyrics are hardly a recipe for universal bliss. Chaos may be closer to the truth." Engel then explains why Lennon's anthem, if realized, would be hell on earth: "Let's imagine that; let's imagine six billion people who believe that flesh and blood is all there is; that once you shuffle off this mortal coil, poof, you're history; that Hitler and Mother Teresa, for example, both met the same ultimate fate. Common sense suggests that such a world would produce a lot more Hitlers and a lot fewer Teresas..." Quote of the day George F. Will in his Washington Post column about Congress' digital television entitlement program: "... the timeless truth that no matter how deeply you distrust the government's judgment, you are too trusting." Quebec a model for daycare? Le Blog de Polyscopique notes this study of Quebec's five-dollar-a-day daycare which concludes that children in institutional care "are worse off in a variety of behavioral and health dimensions, ranging from aggression to motor-social skills to illness." Furthermore, the "program led to more hostile, less consistent parenting, worse parental health, and lower-quality parental relationships." Yup, that sounds like a program worth copying. Withdrawal = betrayal = failure William Shawcross in The Speccie on why the coalition forces cannot -- and will not -- abandon Iraq: "Iraqis will make sure that the new Iraq succeeds. The only thing that could stop it now would be if the US and Britain really did abandon the Iraqi people and withdraw prematurely, thus allowing the few thousand terrorists to destroy the future of 26 million people. The Nobel Peace Prize winner from East Timor, José Ramos-Horta, said recently that he too believes the Iraqis can create a decent society. 'But they cannot succeed if they are abandoned. And the brave young American soldiers whom we today see cruising the treacherous streets of Iraq, sometimes battling the terrorists, sometimes conversing with ordinary Iraqis, will be remembered as the heroes who made this possible'." Imagine no John Lennon It's easy if you try. Celebrating 25 years Lennon free. This story reports that the former Beatle is the topping earning dead celebrity, with his estate raking in $22 million per year. So even in death, he's a hypocrite: "Imagine no possesions, I wonder if you can..." Funniest thing I've read this election Grumpy Young Crank has a piece in the Calgary Herald on what a three-martini debate between the federal leaders might look like. Here's a taste: "Don Newman: Prime Minister, let's start with you. What's this election all about? Paul Martin: Don, that's an excellent question, and I thank you for it. Don, let me be perfectly clear. Canadians don't want a Holiday election. The Holidays are a time for family, for sitting around the Holiday tree, singing Holiday carols and opening Holiday presents. Stephen Harper: It's Christmas, Paul. The word is Christmas. Paul Martin: I'm just being inclusive, Stephen. Maybe you should try it sometime. Stephen Harper: What's that supposed to mean? Paul Martin: You seem angry today, Stephen. Perhaps you'd like to build one of those Alberta firewalls between us. Stephen Harper: How about I shove one of those firewalls… Don Newman: Gentlemen, PLEASE… Jack Layton: Hey, can I get another drink? Don Newman: Uh, Mr. Layton, the rules state you only have to consume 3 martinis before you debate. You don't need to have a…fifth martini?" Fascinating Ayn Rand fact If you ever get to Jenny Turner's London Review of Books review of Jeff Britting's biography Ayn Rand linked to by Burkean Canuck last week, you'll learn that the objectivist thinker's favourite television show was Charlie's Angels. Cato Unbound The Cato Institute has a new feature, Cato Unbound, which is a monthly magazine done in a bloggish format. Each month will focus on one topic and December's is on the Constitution and what three amendments various libertarians would like to see. James M. Buchanan kicks it off. Buchanan invokes Hayek in making a case for an amendment that would read: "Congress shall make no law authorizing government to take any discriminatory measures of coercion." Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Quotidian "Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets." -- W.H. Auden, "Epitaph on a Tyrant" Champion's League I was wrong -- Man U did not get through to the final 16 for a record 10th time. Benfica beat them 2-1 and with their early exit from European competition, so too goes up to $26 million. Lille and Werder Bremen make it through, too. Having made it to the Champion's League for the first time, Udinese was five minutes away from advancing until Barca scored a pair. The Italian side was ready to move to the final 16 on a 0-0 tie until Barcelona scored twice in the final few minutes. Question for readers I'm on Behind the Story on CTS this Sunday -- the show tapes on Friday -- and we're discussing the election, Stanley Tookie Williams, trends in journalism, and copyright law in the age of the internet. Here's how the show's host sets up this last issue: "Canadian copyright law is facing a challenge from freelance journalists who write stories for newspapers ... and then the stories end up all over the world via the web. We’ll grapple with what an editor must do in the age of mass worldwide electronic media." I don't know what to think about this. I think intellectual property rights should be respected, but I am realistic enough to understand that new technologies make this difficult to enforce. Any ideas. Send them to paul_tuns[AT]yahoo.com. Saddam quote of the day After a witness described her torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime, the former president yelled at the judge: "This is terrorism. I will not return. I will not come to an unjust court. Go to hell." More on David Cameron John O'Sullivan's Chicago Sun-Times column appeared yesterday before David Cameron was coronated king of the Tory Party but it does two things: 1) Explains why Cameron will have difficulty beating Gordon Brown, warning that the new Tory leader's popularity may be a bubble ready to pop (Brown's substance will go further than Cameron's style). 2) Paints Brown as the more appealing or, at least, endearing person. JO'S quotes the Telegraph's Rachel Sylvester: "As a politician, Mr. Brown dislikes the new celebrity style of politics, what he calls 'all that touchy-feely stuff'; he has never posed for a photograph with his son, John, since he took him home from hospital when he was only hours old. He thinks Parliament should be treated with more respect and he wants his party to rediscover an understanding of the past. His version of Britishness is more empire than Cool Britannia. He wants history lessons to be compulsory in schools until the age of 16." That is, Brown has gravitas. That said, and for all my worries about Cameron, I am impressed with his Shadow Cabinet and other appointments, from the restoration of William Hague to Foreign Affairs, maintaining David Davis as Shadow Home Secretary, naming Iain Duncan Smith to head up a social justice policy group, and seeing off Malcolm Rifkind. With IDS at social justice it won't be the kind of social justice that makes one want to reach for a gun. It seems Dr. Liam Fox was demoted but he still holds an important post (Shadow Defense Secretary) and even the responsibilities given to Ken Clarke seem reasonable, within his talents and provide for a minimum of damage. HSAs need push David Gratzer writes in today's Wall Street Journal that Health Savings Accounts, which celebrate their second birthday tomorrow, are becoming more popular (with 11% of all employers in the US offering HSAs next year), but are limited by too many federal restrictions and state regulations. Among Gratzer's suggested changes to increase the availability of this vital healthcare reform is for governments to make them available to employees and for Congress to pass a pro-competition in healthcare measure: "A remedy is readily available: Congress should pass Rep. John Shadegg's Health Care Choice Act, which would allow out-of-state purchase of health insurance. Modeled after interstate banking laws, this legislation would create a national market for health insurance. Critics suggest that consumers would be stripped of basic protection since local regulations could be circumvented. But that simply isn't the case. Nothing would stop a New Yorker from buying a New York policy; there simply would be the option of going out-of-state as well. Governments can also take a leadership role in popularizing HSAs by making them available to public employees. Despite the dire financial condition of most public plans, only the federal government and Arkansas offer HSAs. Imagine the impact on the marketplace if hundreds of thousands of state employees had them." World (read: elite) ignore Saddam trial From Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus column: "The testimony out of the Saddam trial is really big — I mean, the witnesses are laying it all out, what Saddam and his accomplices did. Human experience does not get more depraved than this. Do you have a sense that the world cares much? (And by 'world,' we often mean the media, and other elites.) I have a sense that it does not — because this testimony is a distraction (or would be a distraction) from the accepted narrative: bad, lying America, imposing itself where it has no business." 12/7 Today is the 64th anniversary of Pearl Harbour. National Geographic's Remembering Pearl Harbour is well worth a look. Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Stanley Tookie Williams no poster boy for anti-capital punishment campaign Joshua Marquis, a district attorney, writes in the Los Angeles Times that Stanley Tookie Williams, co-founder of the Crips, does not deserve commutation. Marquis notes that anti-capital punishment campaigners probably do not even know the names of Williams' victims, that Marquis (as a co-founder of the Crips gang) is responsible for the deaths of many young black men in Los Angeles and that although he (and his defenders) claim he is reformed, Williams may still be directing gang activity. And while Williams has written children's books, he has never shown remorse. But back to those anti-capital punishment crusaders, of whom Marquis says: "According to a Gallup poll in May, nearly 75% of Americans support capital punishment for murderers. There are some murderers so heinous and so evil that removing them is the measure of the severity of their violation of the social contract. Williams qualifies. Religious, artistic and academic elites that most vociferously oppose capital punishment are the least affected by violent crime. They invariably avoid discussion of the toll homicide takes on victims, their survivors and the communities hardest hit by murder — people of color and the poor. A black man in the United States is seven times more likely to be a victim of homicide than a white man." Very nice; very true. And for the record, Williams' victims include Albert Owens and the Yang family, all whom were gunned down. Owens was a night clerk at a convenience store and a father of two. On February 28, 1979, Owens was shot twice at close range while Williams robbed the 7-Eleven store he worked at. Eleven days later, Williams robbed the Brookhaven Motel where they shot the owner, Yen-I Yang (65), his wife Tsai-Shai Chen Yang (62) and their daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin (42). There is nothing in the court records or media reports about Williams showing Owens or the Yangs any mercy. Keep an eye out for this Julie Ponzi at No Left Turns notes that the Claremont Institute's Eloise Anderson is coming out with The Great Racial Divide: Why Conservatives Fail to Pesuade Blacks. Ponzi quotes Shelby Steele who says of the book: "In The Great Racial Divide Eloise Anderson puts her finger precisely on what is missing in the new "compassionate conservatism:" the resonant understanding that black Americans come to modern conservatism out of an experience of betrayal and exclusion. She tells us that it is not enough now to just offer blacks the great truths of the conservative movement. Conservatives must examine their own indulgence in 'states rights' arguments, the 'southern strategy,' the creation of majority-minority congressional districts, their accommodation to identity politics at the expense of integration, their occasional openness to the notion of black intellectual inferiority, and so on. More clearly than any other black conservative, Anderson articulates the racial challenge of modern conservatism: to be deepened by a fuller understanding of the black American experience. This monograph should become a manifesto of the Republican Party." Should be good. Anderson "tells it like it is." I recall that in the early 1990s she was asked about the cause of high black teen pregnancy. She answered: "Black teenage girls spread their legs too easily." Quotidian "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come." -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Ceaser" World Cup 2006 AP does the best they can to explain how FIFA seeds the World Cup. Germany, Brazil, England, Italy, Argentina, France, Mexico and Spain are the top seeds and cannot face each other in the first round. It is shameful that Spain, which needed a special playoff, is ranked in the top eight but the Netherlands, ranked third in the world right now (and second in October), is not among the top eight. (The Czech Republic is ranked second and they are not among the top eight seeds, either.) The group drawings will be held on Friday and hosted by Heidi Klum. You can watch the draw live on Friday (20:15 GMT) on Fifa's official World Cup website. That was uncomfortably close AC Milan beat Schalke 3-2 today. With the win, they won their division and advance to the final 16 in the Champions League. If they lost or tied, they would have been eliminated. Needless to say, coach Carlo Ancelloti was relieved. Elsewhere: PSV Eindhoven also advanced with their victory of Fenerbahce. Liverpool tied unbeatable Chelsea and won their division although both English clubs go to the final 16. Surprisingly, a never Scottish team had never made the final 16 until today as the Rangers tied Inter Milan who had already won the division. Oddly, in Group F, the standings were decided before today's matches with Olympique Lyon and Real Madrid advancing. Likewise, Wednesday's matches in Groups A and B are meaningless with Juventas, Bayern Munich, Arsenal and Ajax advancing (although Thun and AC Sparta Prague in Group B will be battling for an UEFA spot). In Group C, Udinese will likely advance as long as they don't surrender too many goals to Barca in an anticipated loss. In the super exciting Group D, two points separate four teams: Villarreal, Lille, Manchester United and Benfica. I predict the Spanish and English sides will advance. Vote for us, we are not the other guys: NDP Ed Wark, the campaign director for the NDP in Nova Scotia, told the Halifax Herald: "What we’re finding is at this point, there’s just a disgust at what’s gone on, and people can’t bring themselves to vote for the Stephen Harper Tories, but at the same time they’re looking at the Liberals, and they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar again ... It’s obvious our hope is they’ll come to us." What an inspiring pitch. The day after December 5 Rumour has it that while Sinterklaas gave chocolate letters to good Dutch children last night, Zwarte Pieter did not hand out coal to the bad ones. Apparently, the seasonal giving of fossil fuels is a violation of the Kyoto Protocol. Cameron new Tory leader Pretend conservative David Cameron ("I want us to give this country a modern compassionate Conservatism that is right for our times and right for our country." -- yuck!) beat nominal conservative David Davis for the leadership of the British Conservative Party by a margin of better than two-to-one. Stories from the London Times (here and here), Daily Telegraph (here and here) and BBC (here and here). Cameron's politically correct ("We need to change the scandalous under-representation of women in the Conservative Party and we’ll do that") victory speech here. I am convinced this is the death of a once great party. And if not the death, at least its irrelevance for in an age of New Labour, the Modernized Tory is a redundancy. Christmas present ideas Calgary Sun columnist Paul Jackson says every "true conservative" should receive a copy of Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin's Rescuing Canada's Right. Why just conservatives? The first part of the book provides an excellent if brief political history of Canada. The middle third explains that there is no vast right-wing conspiracy in Canada. The latter describes several policy ideas that should demonstrate that conservatives are not scary. Liberals both of the large and small-l variety, would benefit from reading the book, too. Well it's nothing to him Paul Martin implicitly criticized Stephen Harper's plan to let parents of young children to keep more of their own money as insufficient when he said that it would only give parents an additional $25 a week. A couple of observations: 1) $25 may not be a lot to a person who once owned a steamship company but it does make a difference to the average family trying to make ends meet. This would demonstrate that he is out of touch. 2) If $25 is not enough, Paul Martin should "raise" Harper and offer more for working families. When good news comes from the UN, it is usually news from the US ambassador What Morton H. Halperin at Democracy Arsenal finds alarming, I find incredibly encouraging: "I fear that the US is precipitating a crisis which will further weaken American ability to lead and which could debilitate the UN. As reported in an editorial in the New York Times on Friday, John Bolton has informed his colleagues that the United States will only support an interim three month budget for the UN and will accept a longer budget only after the US reform agenda is implemented. This position has provoked a sense of alarm in New York, causing the Secretary General to cancel a long-planned trip to Asia. With the possible exception of Japan, the US position has no significant support. UN officials say that the UN will run out of money by late February if this course is adopted. Perm Reps from friendly nations, deeply involved in these negotiations, believe that Bolton went directly to the President (perhaps through the Vice President) and that the Secretary of State was told by the President that the US would not budge from its opposition to adopting the regular UN budget this month. So much for the promise to the Senate that Bolton would simply be an Ambassador taking orders from the State Department. Only a concerted counter-attack from supporters of the UN, in the administration, the Congress, and the public, can prevent a train wreck." If the UN reforms because of the financial pressure the United States is exerting, good. If it doesn't and the work of the UN is hindered because it can't pay its bills, good. It's a win-win situation. The UN condemns terrorism against Israel Sadly, this is newsworthy: "Deploring today's terrorist bombing in Israel, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan joined his fellow co-sponsors of the Middle East Road Map peace plan in calling on Syria to close at once the offices of the Palestinian group which took credit for the attack and prevent the use of its territory by such groups." The UN News Centre then reports the mealy-mouthedness of the UN we have come to expect by calling on "all sides" to behave themselves: "'The Quartet denounces all acts of terrorism and urges all parties to exercise restraint, avoid an escalation of the violence, and keep the channels of communication open,' said a statement issued in the name of the four partners of the plan that calls for a series of parallel steps by both sides leading to two States – Israel and Palestine – living side-by-side in peace." The statement does not explicitly condemn the actions of anti-Israeli terrorists because it does not specifically describe their atrocity. But at least they noticed that innocent Israelis are the victims of terror. I guess that's progress. Russia comes to Iran's defense Iran threatens to wipe Israel from the map and Russia agrees to sell Tehran 30 Tor-M1 short-range, surface-to-air missiles and other (as yet) un-named weapons. Now I'm being a little facetious about the destroying Israel angle because the Tor-M1 is a defensive missile system. But a couple of points are in order: 1) Russia should not be militarily aiding Iran as long as Tehran won't budge in its negotiations with the E3 (France, Germany, UK) on uranium enrichment. If Russia will not back up the EU during these discussions by refraining from selling military hardware to Tehran, then the EU and US must let Moscow know such actions are intolerable. 2) Tor-M1 missiles could be used to defend nuclear installations against Israeli Osirak-like pre-emptive strikes. Knowing this, Russia's actions must be read as implicit support for Iran's nuclear program and its obstinacy in dealing with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This is extremely troubling. For nerds who love facts The CIA World Fact Book has the per capita GDP ranked for more than 200 countries and territories. For the record, Canada is 15th with a per capita GDP: $ 31,500. America's GDP is $40,100, good for second behind tiny (and beautiful) Luxemburg which enjoys a spectacular per capita GDP of $ 58,900. (HT: The Globalist) Monday, December 05, 2005
Quotidian "'Every day,' said Proust in the opening sentence of his manifesto Contre Sainte-Beuve, 'I set less store by the intellect.' Today, after eighty years or more of this open war, most educated men and women have been persuaded that all the works of man's mind except art are vulgar frauds: law, the state, machinery, the edifice of trade, are worthless. More, men and women feel that they themselves are worthless, they despise their own existence, because it fails in loveliness when compared with meanest objet d'art. The abandonment of Intellect in favour of communion through quartet playing and amateur ceramics has bred a race of masochist-idolators, broken up into many sects, but at one in their worship of the torturing indefinte." -- Jacques Barzun, The House of the Intellect This day in history 214 years ago the most over-rated composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, died at the age of 35. He produced so much music that was so ... the same (the exceptions being "The Magic Flute" and perhaps the "41st Symphony"). Classical music ended in 1773. Tories and the 'what the hell' voters If you read only one blog for election news/commentary/analysis, shame on you. But if you do thus limit yourself, it better be David Mader.* (If you read two, the other better be Political Staples.) Anyway, Mader has an excellent analysis on who the 20% of voters who are undecided are likely to vote for on January 23: "... the question becomes how unlikely voters might be expected to break. The working assumption has to be, I think, that voters will go with the devil they know. That's what turned the tide last time around - the successful Liberal demonization of the Conservative Party. But it's not clear to me that the same thing will work this time. The devil we know is a lot more devilish this time around, and honesty in government is a key voter concern. This gives the Tories what I'll call the 'what the hell' factor. It's all about what the undecided voter thinks the moment before he checks his ballot. Last time, he (or she, more likely) thought: what the hell, might as well vote Liberal again. This time I think the odds are better that she'll say: what the hell, I'll vote Conservative. These are the voters, I think, that the Tories need to campaign to." * But come back here for non-election news/commentary/analysis/smart-a#@ remarks. Media never questions Carter In his Impromptus column Jay Nordlinger writes about Jimmy Carter and how the media never questions anything he says: "Since he left office in 1981, Carter has opined, written, and pontificated, over and over again. But he's pretty much never questioned. He's never challenged. Of course, once in a while he submits to an interview, but it's not really an interview — it's more like a fawn-fest. Carter never faces what my colleague Rick Brookhiser calls 'comeback'." Well, Nordlinger challenges Carter's statements. It's worth reading. Worth particular note is Carter's statement that George W. Bush's policies "threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican," including "the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights." Nordlinger wonders: "Here is a man, Bush, who toppled two of the most murderous, most vicious, most evil regimes known to man: that of the Taliban, and that of Saddam Hussein. Can Carter muster no applause?" Great Christmas present could help Tories, too You can buy my Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal from Amazon or my publisher. While making family and friends upset by reminding them how lousy was our leadership for a decade under Chretien may not be a great idea, it might move a few tentative Liberal voters away from their party. Blair and Brown's socialist Britain The Business editorializes: "This newspaper has been alone in highlighting how, under internationally comparable figures from the OECD, British public spending has surged as a share of GDP from 37.5% in 1997 to an estimated 45% next year. Even under Mr Brown’s slightly tighter plans for 2008-09 and beyond, the British economy would remain stuck at this European-style level of spending for the foreseeable future, with its concomitant sclerotic economic growth rates. Even the OECD figures fail to show the true extent of the surge in the size and power of the British state over the past eight years and the extent of Mr Brown’s profligacy in financing a giant, all-encompassing welfare state. One way to picture what is happening is to consider the exploding public-sector payroll: the official Labour Force Survey estimates there are now 7m public-service workers, a rise of 1m since Labour came to power in 1997 and over 24% of the entire workforce. This is 1.2m more than the 5.8m total of state workers reached simply by adding up those who work for public-sector organisations; this method of counting also shows a huge rise but excludes many workers who depend on the state for their income, such as doctors with the NHS. Hence the more accurate and encompassing Labour Force Survey, which shows that one in four British workers now work for the state Another way of understanding how the state has ballooned under Mr Brown is to calculate the real size of the national debt. Mr Brown conveniently uses a different definition of debt than the European Union (EU) does in the Maastricht Treaty – and it is easy to see why. By the EU’s way of counting, Britain’s national debt is already a Golden Rule-busting 42% of GDP, 5.5 percentage points of GDP more than Mr Brown’s less rigorous numbers. To this 42% should be added three major types of “off-budget” government liabilities: much capital spending now takes places via the private finance initiative (PFI) and is classified as part of the private sector even though underwritten by the state; the government has incurred large contingent liabilities through guaranteeing contracts passed by nominally private companies; and unfunded state pension liabilities have surged." This is what happens when the media doesn't do its job and the opposition is weak and worried about internal battles. As a Canadian I know this from experience. The extinction of the British Conservative Party? The London Times reports that an internal party document says that the Tory lawn is dying -- there are no grassroots and many constituency associations have no one to fill executive positions. The party is dealing with that problem by merging neighbouring associations. Furthermore, the party is only now breaking even. But, we are told, with modernizing leader David Cameron likely to be announced the new Tory helmsman tomorrow, everything will be A-OK with anticipated new recruits and donations revitalizing the party's fortunes. We'll see. Balko on the snotty elitism of the anti-Wal-Mart crowd Radley Balko rounds up comments on Kevin Drum's piece at his The Washington Monthly blog on Wal-Mart and concludes: "What a bunch of elitist, self-absorbed snottery. These, remember, are the self-annointed champions of the poor. So long as they don't have to look at them." Some of the comments Balko collects aren't that bad but this one certainly is: "... taking stores like walmart away from exurban and rural poor definitely will alienate them from the democratic party. On the other hand, those of us who live in metropolitan cities like new york, we know the local butcher/florist/green-grocer by name, and wouldn't sacrifice them for a walmart if it is the last place on the planet to shop." (Read: Wal-Mart is good enough for them, just not for us.) Here are several other comments at Drum's Washington Monthly post on Wal-Mart: "How much are you saving shopping at Wal-Mart when you factor in the cost of filling up your SUV and the opportunity cost of your time getting there, wandering around, and buying things you don't need just because they're cheap?" And: "Personally, I never shop at Wal-Mart simply because the stores are always a huge mess, not for some high-falutin' political reason." And: "Walmart is an affront to our quality of life. I think there is an unfortunate tendency to look at the Walmart issues as though it can be sliced, diced, and put on a graph for analysis by economists. The more important question IMHO, is, 'What kind of society to we want to become'?" Saam Barrager's observation, on the other hand, is a rare example of common sense among the comments: "While I strongly disagree with low wages, high wages is not Walmart's responsibility. Their responsibility is innovation in the retail sector. They do that. Brilliantly. Walmart is the reason capitalism works." Which is precisely why the Left doesn't like Wal-Mart. Just wondering The London Free Press reports that former Liberal MP Pat O'Brien -- the man who left the party over SSM and then decided to not seek re-election -- said of Stephen Harper that he, "could be quite a good prime minister, quite frankly ... There's every reason to expect (that)." If O'Brien truly believes this why didn't he seek the Tory nomination in London Fanshawe and perhaps help deliver the party one more (extremely important) seat? Tom Friedman is wrong -- for now Stephen Roach, Chief Economist and Director of Global Economic Analysis at Morgan Stanely, challenges New York Times columnist Tom Friedman's thesis that The World is Flat (in brief: technological and social changes effectively leveled the world -- or at least the economic world -- making Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next-door neighbours") isn't quite true. At least not yet. Roach says: "Globalization may well be win-win in the long run — but in the here and now, it is profoundly asymmetrical. Clearly, the Chinese producer on the supply side and the American consumer on the demand side are the two major engines of the world economy. In a flat world, these two engines would be working together in near perfect harmony. In today’s world, however, they are like passing ships in the night — cruising full speed ahead on their own journeys in increasingly choppy seas. Globalization at this point in time is far more about disparities between nations than the assimilation of a flat world." The problem, Roach finds, is that: "Globalization has given rise to a multitude of new entrants on the supply side of the global equation — but very few new consumers on the demand side." Give it time. Unless there is political interference (something that the Chinese arequite likely to do, and to a lesser extent Indian and American, governments, too) it should end up balancing out. (HT: PSD blog) Sunday, December 04, 2005
JKN on strategic voting J. Kelly Nestruck reminds readers about a June 2004 post he had in which the Fence Sitter demonstrated how the Conservatives picked up at least one BC seat after Liberal scare-mongering hurt the NDP's chances in New Westminster-Coquitlam. JKN concludes his post with this: "They really need to be clear about how sometimes a vote for the Liberals is a vote for the Conservatives. And, worse, a vote for the Liberals is always a vote for the Liberals." Very funny. Schuster on Rescuing the Right Eli Schuster, the Grumpy Young Crank, concludes his review of Adam Daifallah and Tasha Kheiriddin's Rescuing Canada's Right thusly: "If Canada's right wishes to get its act together, it's going to have to figure out how to sell an entirely new brand of Canadian nationalism to the public. That's a tall order even for the brainiest of think tanks." Yes, but it is what think tanks -- and the opinion press -- are supposed to do: make people look at new issues or look at old issues in a new way. It won't be easy but neither will it ever be done unless the work starts. Now. The American Enterprise Institute was created when FDR was president; National Review under Eisenhower. The trappings of a political movement must be created now not to win the election in January or even in the next five years but to ensure that conservative ideas can be part of the mainstream political discussion in 2020. Quotidian "Sometimes I think all the trouble in the world is caused by intellectuals who have an 'idea'." -- David Hare, Stuff Happens To beat them, you have be exactly like them The Weekly Standard subtitles this story by Gerard Baker on David Cameron, the likely next British Conservative leader, thusly: "Have Britain's conservatives found the alternative to New Labour?" Baker says that while some of Cameron's advisors are very pro-American and see similarities between their party and the GOP of the late 1990s (squeezed out of the centre by a pre-fixed "New" political opponent), the real and admitted model is Tony Blair who sought to "modernize" the party and make it attractive to younger voters. To do so requires changing the tone, style and substance of the party. Unfortunately for British conservatives, that means the (New) Conservatives are going to look a lot like New Labour. My guess, though, is that it will bring old Labour electoral success. Harper's healthcare fix Stephen Harper has a plan to ensure that people don't linger on waiting lists while their health deteriorates. Well, if not a plan, at least he's against people lingering on waiting lists while their health deteriorates. Many conservatives -- or at least Conservatives -- seem enthusiastic about Harper planning to have a plan. Not Gerry Nicholls. On Friday he said: "Stephen Harper announced his health care plan today. He is going to reduce medical waiting lists --- somehow. This is pretty much the same as MFEM Martin’s plan, which also promises to reduce waiting lists --- somehow. Of course, neither man sees a role for the private sector in our socialist health care system. And until they do see a role for the private sector, sick and dying Canadians will just have to get by --- somehow." Great news in the war on terror The London Times reports that Al-Qaeda's operational commander Abu Hamza Rabia has been killed: "AN Al-Qaeda commander, reputed to be one of the organisation’s top five officials, was killed at a so-called 'safe house' in a tribal region of Pakistan close to the Afghan border, Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, announced yesterday." But there's more, even better news: "Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al-Qaeda, said Rabia’s death could mean that the security forces were closing in on Bin Laden: 'The fact that Abu Hamza Rabia has been killed clearly demonstrates that Bin Laden is very likely not far away. If the operational momentum can be sustained, I believe that other senior leaders of Al-Qaeda will be killed or captured'." Debate stuck in a rut The Seattle Times kicks off their editorial on Bush's victory/exit strategy thusly: "President George W. Bush needs some fresh material. Almost three years after the invasion he is trying to sell a 'Strategy for Victory in Iraq'." Yes, and "Bush lied, people died" is new. Yet the paper implicitly made that argument: "The credibility chasm — not gap — on Iraq might not be so vast if the White House had candidly acknowledged difficult work inprogress." In case anyone hadn't noticed, Bush isn't pushing the WMD line anymore and hasn't for a while. He's talking about winning Iraq, building a democracy in the region and securing a peaceful nation for the Iraqi people. Yet his political opponents -- in Congress and the fourth estate -- keep chanting "Bush lied, people died." Anti-capitalist economics explained Jay Jardine observes: "Just so's I'm clear: 1) If you set your prices lower than the competition, you will be charged with predatory pricing 2) If you set your prices higher than the competition, you will be charged with gouging 3) If you set your prices exactly the same as the competition, you will be charged with collusion." Christmas in January for Bush? The Cato Institute's Patrick Basham, formerly of the Fraser Institute, writes in the Washington Times (HT: GCH): "Why does President Bush hope Christmas comes a little late this year? Because on Jan. 23, Canada may elect the most pro-American leader in the Western world. Free-market economist Stephen Harper, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, is pro-free trade, pro-Iraq war, anti-Kyoto, and socially conservative. Move over Tony Blair: If elected, Mr. Harper will quickly become Mr. Bush's new best friend internationally and the poster boy for his ideal foreign leader." That might be an exaggeration, but certainly Harper would be less of a pain for the United States than America-hater-in-chief Paul Martin. But aside from Canada-US relations, tucked away in the fourth paragraph is this significant line: "Canada will have its first leader in living memory who actually believes Big Government is a real problem." Christmas for Canadians might fall on January 23, too. Great idea George F. Will begins his Washington Post column with this quote from Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "A Locrian who proposed any new law stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled." Great quote Guy Herbert at Samizdata: "An unfunded pension is like a university education. If everyone has one, you can't expect it to be worth anything." Do the rights of Canadians emanate from the Liberal Party CP describes one of the new Liberal Party of Canada ads: "One man says he knows the Liberals will defend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; a young woman says the Liberals allow Canadians to express themselves and provide rights to people and minorities 'that otherwise would not be granted rights'." Put aside the idea that minorities aren't people (what else does "people and minorities" mean?), although imagine what would happen if the Conservatives utilized such a line. CP says of the Liberals, "they’re going to save their harder hitting ones for after Christmas." So let me get this right: the Liberal Party implies that if the Conservatives had been in power, "people and minorities" wouldn't be allowed to express themselves* or have been provided rights. The message is clearly that the Conservatives don't want minorities -- visible minorites, homosexuals, presumably women (a majority) and others -- to have rights and yet we are warned by CP that the harder hitting ads will be aired in January. Watch out, this is going to get nasty and dirty, and we should all remember that it was the Liberals who have started it. * What about the gag law? Saturday, December 03, 2005
Quotidian "The business of 'influence' is one that played a great part in Uncle Giles's philosophy of life. It was an article of faith with him that all material advancement in the world was the result of influence, a mysterious attribute with which he invested, to a greater or lesser degree, every human being on earth except himself. That the rich and nobly born automatically enjoyed an easy time of it through influence was, of course, axiomatic; and -- as society moved from an older order -- anybody who might have claims to be considered, at least outwardly, of the poor and lowly was also included by him among those dowered with this almost magic appanage. In cases such as that of the window cleaner, or the man who came to read the gas-meter, the advantage enjoyed was accounted to less obvious -- but, in fact, superior -- opportunity for bettering position in an increasingly egalitarian world." -- Anthony Powell, A Question of Upbringing Hurry up and grow up The Observer reports: "A joint report from the Government's independent advisors on sexual health and teenage pregnancy recommends that detailed knowledge about sex should become a routine part of all pupils' education and points out that adopting such an approach makes young people better able to handle sexual issues. The 42 advisors include senior doctors, experts in sexual behaviour, specialists in bringing up children, nurses, and leading academics in the field. They want ministers to make Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) a statutory subject in all primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. Certain schools provide PSHE to help prepare their students to understand the adult world of sex, alcohol, drugs and bullying." In kindergarten? Friday, December 02, 2005
Quotidian "Disagreement is specific and programmatic, dissent is formless and unfocused. Disagreement is concerned with policy, dissenters are concerned with identity, which usually means themselves. Disgreers ask, what about the war in Vietnam? Dissenters ask, what about me? Disagreers seek solutions to common problems, dissenters sekk power for themselves. The spirit of dissent stalks our land. It seeks the dignity and privilege of disagreement, but it is entitled to neither." -- Daniel J. Boorstin, The Decline of Radicalism: Reflections on America Today A Cuban freedom fighter is freed The New York Sun reported today: "The Cuban dissident who as a desperate prison protest took a knife to his face and body - carving into his forehead the letters 'I,' for 'inocente,' or 'innocent,' and 'L,' for 'libertad,' or 'liberty' - was released yesterday after 27 months spent languishing in Fidel Castro's gulag. The release came the day after his plight was highlighted Wednesday in a front-page article in The New York Sun that compared his action to that of Medal of Honor winner James Stockdale, who, while imprisoned by communists in Hanoi, mutilated his face by beating it with a wooden stool to dissuade his captors from exploiting him for propaganda purposes. The dissident released yesterday, Mario Enrique Mayo, is one of the 75 Cuban dissidents jailed during Fidel Castro's infamous 'primavera negra,' or 'black spring,' crackdown in March 2003. As Mr. Mayo became the 15th of the 75 pro-democracy activists to be released, the news was met with a mix of joy and frustration, as other members of the Cuban opposition on the island and in America remained mindful of hundreds of other prisoners of conscience still suffering in Mr. Castro's dungeons." I'm glad that someone is noticing what is happening in Fidel's gulags. Great reporting -- a great humane service, too -- by the New York Sun. 'Imagine the state that does not allow you to protect yourself' That's a rough quote from Ted Nugent's wife. That quote came to mind when I read Perry de Havilland's defense of "vigilante law" at Samizdata: "MP Andrew Dismore has blocked attempts to clarify the law on self defence in Britain being proposed by MP Anne McIntosh, because he thinks it would be 'vigilante law'. Well I have thought for some time now that non-state use of force in defence of life, limb and private property is exactly what is needed in this country and to make no apology for robustly defending what is yours. Take the law into your own hands because it is indeed yours to take, not Andrew Dismore's to deny. I realise that if you are old, infirm or a small woman living alone, the fact the state has disarmed you means you have no option whatsoever but to surrender your property and just pray the criminal(s) will not harm you, but those of us still physically able should be encouraged to use whatever weapons they can find at hand to assert some self ownership." Polling staples If your a political junkie, polls can be an addiction. Greg Staples is all over them including the first SES/CPAC tracking poll which finds the Liberals comfortably ahead of the Tories in part (it seems) because the NDP is already bleeding support to the stop-Harper Liberals. Anyway, Greg has covered every poll I know of thus far so make him a daily stop. A Burkean disses Rand Over at The Shotgun Russ Kuykendall goes looking for trouble. I told a friend earlier this week that the difference between real conservatives and real liberatrians is that we, conservatives, get nuance. Like Russ' observation that: "Burke argues not for minimalist government, but LIMITED government. He argues for tradition and institutions other than the state as a bulwark against a totalizing state. Smith recognizes a place for charitable activity which is something other than the altruism against which Ayn Rand rails. And Montesquieu understands that checks and balances internal to the state itself can better restrain the state than the aggrandized individual." Thursday, December 01, 2005
Fighting for freedom in Cuba I have half completed Repression In Cuba: A Battle Against the People, available in pdf format here. It describes what dissidents are going through but how they remain defiant. It is one of the great tragedies of diplomacy today that Canada and the European Union are virtually silent about Fidel Castro's oppression of his own people as they refuse to show any solidarity with the prison island's freedom fighters. UPDATE: The Miami Herald reports that Panama and Cuba relations get warmer (scroll down). Panamanians are headed to Cuba for free eye operations. I bet they remain blind to the human rights abuses in Fidel's island prison. Did Hillary Clinton have an abortion? Abortionist William F. Harrison (featured in this Los Angeles Times story) reviewed Bill Clinton's My Life for Amazon.com (scroll down) and noted: "I am almost 69 years old, and have been a student of all of the presidents of my lifetime, starting with FDR and going to GWB. I have known Bill and Hillary Clinton personally since they both moved to Fayetteville to teach at the University of Arkansas Law School in the early 70s. I met Hillary first as her physician and she soon introduced me to her then boyfriend, Bill. ... I was then a practicing ob-gyn providing abortions, which I considered was an extremely important part of my practice - for which I was receiving heavy attacks from the radical prolifers in our state.)" And I think the obvious question this raises is whether Hillary Clinton had an abortion? What this means politically is unanswerable -- I certainly don't think it would be smart politics to attack her over this. (HT: LifeSiteNews.com) John Muggeridge, RIP John Muggeridge died last Friday. Hilary White and David Warren pay fine tributes to the man about whom Hilary said to me just before he died: "The world needs more people like John Muggeridge. The world needs more John Muggeridges." John would have blushed at such a statement. He was gentlemanly and scholarly. One of the brightest and most well-read men I have ever met, he was a brilliant and delightful conversationalist. But I was always impressed by his gentleness, decency and courteousness. I don't know anyone who was more of a gentleman than John. Yes, the world needs more John Muggeridges and it has deeply saddened me that we lost the one we have. Quotidian "McKisco was 'well-informed' on a range of subjects wider than Goethe's -- it was interesting to listen to the innumerable facile combinations that he referred to as his opinions." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night Going positive and negative In the Ottawa Citizen earlier this week, Adam Daifallah preached the virtue of the Stephen Harper campaign going positive, with a hopeful message. Fair enough -- and Harper is doing it (so far). Blog Polyscopique adds, however: "However, it is always good to be able to play more than one note; Harper and the Conservative Party should not forget how to be negative, especially late in the campaign, and this for two reasons. First, as Ipsos pollster Darrell Bricker pointed out, the 2004 election campaign showed that negative advertising works. Second, this is paradoxically a requirement for sending an effective positive message. If Harper says, as Adam suggests, that he wants to make Canada 'the best place to live in, work and raise a family', then Paul Martin will simply reply that it already is; Jean Chrétien would reply that Canada is already "da best country in da world". Then Harper will have to point out what is broken in order to explain why his fixes are needed." If Anglicanism did not exist, it would not be necessary to invent it The American Spectator blog: "A firm stance by the Anglican Church's newest bishop: 'What I would say to the two sides is cool it, just cool it'." The issue is the ordination of gay clergy. 15 years and 50% fewer hospital beds James Bartholomew at The Welfare State We're In (November 30) reports: "The average number of NHS beds available in England continues to shrink. There were fifty-five per cent more beds in 1988/89 than there are now (282,895 versus 181,772)." To be fair to Tony Blair's Labour government, most of that decrease happened under Margaret Thatcher and John Major (from 282,895 beds to 193,625). Bartholomew also has comments on how the reduction in the number of beds should have resulted in lower health costs: "When people say 'Well of course, medical care has to be more expensive these days because people live longer and the drugs are more expensive' they do not mention this major way in which medical care should have got much cheaper. The most expensive thing in medicine is caring for people in hospital. The wages bill is far bigger than the drugs bill. Yet the amount of caring for people in hospital has declined very dramatically over the past 50 years. A huge amount of money should have been saved because of this." Too little over too long a period The Conservative Party will, in their words, "Immediately cut the GST to six per cent," reduce "the tax further, to five per cent within five years," and make similar reductions to the HST in Atlantic Canada. I floated this idea to a political consultant earlier this year in a slightly different form (immediate cut from 7% to 5%) and was told that a 2 percentage point reduction isn't enough to get the electorate excited. He suggested a GST of 3% or 3.5% -- significant enough to be noticed at the cash register and to stir the imagination of voters who would be attracted to cutting the tax in half. The Conservative proposal offers too little a tax cut over too long a time span to excite most voters. At least this tax-hating voter. Jazzing up The Bible Okay, I'm sure that was heretical. Robert Nordling reads Psalm 53 over a swing beat. (HT: Gideon Strauss) Austin Bay on Canada Austin Bay takes notice of Canadian politics -- again: "Paul Martin’s corrupt Liberal government lost a no-confidence vote. Time for new elections, and time for a new Canadian administration. Martin is the Nixon of the North managing 'the next failed state' and it’s high time the man tumbled into political oblivion." Happy AIDS Day Over at TechCentralStation James Pinkerton writes about the fight against AIDS which includes the "world ... incorporating AIDS activism -- flamboyant in its paradigmatic failure -- into a permanent lifestyle." He describes the AIDS Establishment's not-very-helpful agenda: "The AIDS Establishment's preferred solution is much different: It can be described as a combination of extreme libertarianism, plus extreme opportunism, all wrapped into extreme cynicism. The libertarianism, as noted, is the idea that nobody should be prevented from doing anything -- AIDS is important, but personal and sexual freedom is more important. The opportunism is found in the alliance between the AIDS Establishment and various generic pharmaceutical manufacturers -- most of them, interestingly enough, in India -- who would like to hijack the patents that are applied to the relatively small number of AIDS medicines. These generic manufacturers are renowned for their indifference to quality, just as the NGO distributors are renowned for their indifference to actual cures. Instead, the main goal seems to be simply to crank out medicines, ignoring the hard-learned reality that poor treatment for an infectious disease is often worse than no treatment, because the pathogen is allowed to mutate into an even more virulent strain. Such accelerated evolution, of course, could yet turn the AIDS virus into much more of a killer than it already is. And extreme cynicism, of course, is the obvious result of, first, 'do your own deadly thing,' and, second, 'let others make a good living off of your dying.' After a quarter century, many in the AIDS Establishment must know that they are facilitating the disease, not eradicating it. But they have carved out a good living for themselves, financially, as well as a high status for themselves, morally." I thought I was reading the comments section at The Shotgun ... But it was the conclusion of Doug Gamble's piece on the Canadian election at NRO: "While 'Time for a change' is a slogan that energizes many American voters to turf out a sitting president, those same words strike fear in the heart of the average Canadian. Voters may tinker with the idea of a non-Liberal government, but come January 23, beaten into submission by the Martin fear machine, they are likely to do as they are told, just like the good little Canadians they are." Many conservatives Canadian conservatives feel this way at times -- Mark Steyn says that same thing in the current dead tree version of The Western Standard -- but it doesn't have to be this way and in fact if Stephen Harper maintains an upbeat, mistake-free, forward-looking campaign it won't be. Those are three big ifs but they're doable. One of the signs of the apocolypse -- I agree with The Zerb Antonia Zerbisias says on her media blog: "Somebody ought to tell Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that he is the mainstream media! That he can't have it both ways: both boasting about his ratings and pretending to be an alternative to the big guys." I agree although I don't get labeling O'Reilly McCarthyite. An idiotic windbag maybe. And a note to liberal journalists in general, especially Heather Mallick: O'Reilly ain't a conservative. (HT: J. Kelly Nestruck) 199 Liberal scandals From Rite Turn Only. It's been just 199. The over-riding problem is not even venality but a lust for power -- as I noted in Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal. |