Quotulatiousness

September 10, 2010

Maxime Bernier for PM!

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:12

Now that most of us have given up on any actual free market policies coming out of the PMO, perhaps it’s time to look to someone who still appears to have libertarian tendencies:

It seems the libertarian Conservative MP is offside with the rest of his Quebec caucus colleagues over the issue of funding a multi-million-dollar hockey rink. He was conspicuously absent from a photo-op this week, in which Quebec MPs donned Nordiques jerseys to show their support for the arena and the possibility of bringing an NHL team back to the provincial capital.

“It was instructive that Quebec MP Maxime Bernier, who opposes public handouts for private enterprise, was missing from the photograph and e-mailed me a curt ‘no comment’ when asked about the merits of federal support for the arena,” National Post columnist Don Martin wrote at the time.

Mr. Bernier has since taken to the local airwaves in his Beauce riding to pour cold water on the idea of the Tories showering taxpayer dollars on sports facilities while battling a $56-billion deficfit.

Corporate give-aways of millions of dollars to billionaire sports team owners shouldn’t be merely controversial: they should be anathema. It’s that much worse when the government is deeply in debt.

Update: Maxime Bernier in his own words:

The hard reality is that we have just been through a global economic crisis — which remains very preoccupying and is likely not over — and governments in both Quebec City and Ottawa are heavily indebted. Our government has just posted a huge $56-billion deficit and the priority is to get back to a balanced budget through reductions in our own programs, and avoid by all means getting involved in risky financial ventures.

I was not at all impressed by the Ernst & Young study, which concluded that the project would be “profitable” — but only on the assumption that governments provide full funding for the construction as well as the repairs and renovations that will be necessary over the next 40 years. That’s a deceptive way of putting it. The conclusion should rather be that the project is simply not profitable and will constitute a financial burden for taxpayers for decades to come, even in the best scenario. That’s why not a single private player has been found to invest in it.

Just about any business would be “profitable” if they never had to pay rent for their business premises or buy, build, and maintain their own buildings. That isn’t the way ordinary businesses operate, and professional sports teams shouldn’t be any different. We don’t elect governments to be the primary supporters of sports team owners . . . no matter how many “complimentary” premium seats at the stadium may be offered to individual politicians.

As the great French economic Frédéric Bastiat wrote, “Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else.” When such large amounts are in play, it is impossible to calculate exactly who has received how much. We would need to go beyond a single file and take into account all public spending items, going as far back as possible.

That’s what Quebec separatists like to do. They keep telling us that Quebec has been on the losing side of the financial equation and that Ottawa has systematically been favouring Ontario for more than a century. Meanwhile, people in the rest of the country believe that Quebec is the spoiled child of the federation. Each region can point towards many examples to nurture its frustrations. It is a pointless debate which can only divide our country.

Oh, swoon!

Japan now admits it can’t find over 230,000 elderly citizens

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Health, Japan — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:50

Remember that post from a while back about some Japanese families concealing the death of elderly relatives to scam their pensions? It appears to be a much more widespread problem than they first thought:

More than 230,000 elderly people in Japan who are listed as being aged 100 or over are unaccounted for, officials said following a nationwide inquiry.

An audit of family registries was launched last month after the remains of the man thought to be Tokyo’s oldest were found at his family home.

Relatives are accused of fraudulently receiving his pension for decades.

Officials have found that hundreds of the missing would be at least 150 years old if still alive.

More on that list of tools you don’t need

Filed under: Randomness, Tools — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:27

Jon, my former virtual landlord, wanted to respond to this post:

Your post — here — is amusing. I am guessing, though, that you and Sippican Cottage just don’t do certain things around the house. Taking SC’s easy ones . . .

Sledgehammer — I use mine to set stakes around trees and shrubs.

Center Punch — You don’t need the one shown in the Pop Crap article (which has a shank similar to that of a cold chisel, which makes me think the one they show there is for masonry work), but a centre punch is helpful for drilling. I punch the centres of all my drilled holes, even those that I’m doing on the drill press. I also use a centre punch when mounting hardware, such as hinges, to wood.

Combination wrench — I guess you guys don’t do any plumbing, or anything with bolts that go completely through an object. You can’t reach everything with a socket — a socket will not undo the nut on a toilet’s feed pipe (unless, of couse, you break away the toilet’s tank so that you can get to the nut from the top). And you sometimes need to hold the bolt head in place while you crank on the nut with a socket. I have a good set of combination wrenches and use them a lot on our bikes and playground equipment. I also have a cheap set that came with my socket set that’s convenient to have with the sockets, but I don’t think they will stand up to prolonged use. The socket set itself is an interesting item that would make Sippican Cottage laugh out loud: it’s a 300-some-odd-piece set with 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ drives and sockets. I see the need for 1/4″ and 3/8″ and use both frequently. If I ever need to install industrial-grade light standards or build a highway overpass, I guess the 1/2″ set will come in handy.

But hey — it was on sale!

Jigsaw — Depends on what you are doing. I use mine to rough out stuff that I am going to finish with a template on the router table. If I had a bandsaw, I’d use that instead. I did not have $700 to drop on a bandsaw, so I bought this $50 item instead.

Tin Snips — you need these if you do home repairs involving metal. I’ve used mine to repair or replace exhaust vents, install anti-bird mesh in said vents, replace the clothes dryer exhaust tubing, and to do repairs to aluminum downspouts. I’ve also used them to open those freakin’ polycarbonate clamshell packages that all electronics and toys seem to come in. They are the only way I can get into those things without slicing up my hands on the packaging.

Machinist Vise — this is the only vise I have at the moment. A real woodworker may not need one of these, but I have found mine to be handy.

I wonder how many bench planes Sippican Cottage has . . .

Humph.

As Gerard Vanderleun points out in the comments to the original Sippican Cottage post, “I love this fisking more than I love the dream of an Obama recall. It gets worse since Yahoo evidently chopped this down from the original 50 by Logan. That’s a schmo at the beginning and a know-nothing Yahoo intern chopping at the end. De-licious.

Clarifying the clarification

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:10

It’s going to scroll off the front page soon, so I thought I’d better put in a link to this post about the ongoing confusion in Britain over photography and the right of the police to confiscate images or recordings in certain circumstances. I’ve updated the post twice with more information from The Register.

The bitter choices facing Britain’s new National Security Council

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

The new National Security Council will have its first meeting next week. It’s expected to report on Britain’s defence priorities next month. For any kind of government body, that’s a breathtaking pace to set — and the decisions to be taken will have a huge impact on Britain’s armed forces for decades to come.

Thanks to poor decision-making on new defence purchases, the current government has to cut spending by an estimated 10 to 20%. Each service has major new equipment already in the pipeline, which means cancellation won’t automatically mean monetary relief for the government. The RAF has their priority purchase of 40 more Typhoon aircraft (costing £2.8 billion). The RN is desperate to keep their two new aircraft carriers on schedule for 2016 and 2018 (costing £5.2 billion for the ships and a mind-bending £10 billion for the F-35B aircraft to load on to them). In addition, the nuclear option needs to be renewed or (saving £20 billion) scrapped.

The Economist anticipates the bulk of the cuts going to the RAF and the army:

The RAF looks certain to be hit hard. Douglas Barrie, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, reckons that the air force will shrink dramatically, losing perhaps 200 jets through the early retirement of Tornadoes and Harriers and a scaling back of the plan for a 160-strong Typhoon fleet. Attack helicopters and unmanned drones will increasingly be used to support ground operations instead. The order for F-35 jets, which are to be shared between the navy and the air force, looks certain to be more than halved to around 60, saving more than £5 billion in purchase costs and at least as much in maintenance.

Theoretically, one or both of the navy’s aircraft carriers could be cancelled. That would drastically reduce Britain’s expeditionary capability; but the advanced state of construction, the amount of money already spent and the 10,000 or so jobs at stake make it unlikely. Ditching just one of them is impractical, since two are needed if one is to be continuously available for operations. Despite some excitable recent talk of sharing a carrier with France, the difficulty of agreeing what to do with such a shared vessel make that idea unworkable. Dr Fox has ruled it out, though he is exploring other areas of co-operation.

[. . .]

And despite Afghanistan, the army will not escape entirely. A growing emphasis on special forces in ground warfare, combined with rising scepticism about the future utility of heavy armour should allow two or three battalions of infantry to be eliminated, the mothballing of most of the army’s main battle tanks and thus big savings in manpower and logistical support. A smaller army — comprising perhaps 95,000 soldiers rather than the current 107,000 — would also make it possible to repatriate most of the roughly 19,000 British troops still stationed in Germany without building new bases or housing.

Can anyone adequately explain why Britain still has nearly 20,000 troops in Germany at this late date? What possible strategic value are they, sitting in the middle of Europe?

Saints 14, Vikings 9

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:38

It wasn’t a pretty game, aside from the opening New Orleans drive. Drew Brees had a great start, making the Viking backfield look like statues, but that was the only really “magic” part of the game. From that point onwards, it was a very pedestrian performance by both teams.

This is similar to the start of last season: Brett Favre came in after training camp and only had the playing time in preseason games to learn about his new teammates. The difference is that last season, the Vikings had an easy start to their schedule.

Both Favre and Percy Harvin showed the effects of too little practice, and appeared to be on different pages of the playbook for too much of the game. It’s not surprising that they both have rust, especially for Harvin, who suffered from migraines all through training camp (and had other medical issues). At one point during the game, TV reporter Andrea Kramer reported that Harvin’s heart had stopped after he collapsed on the practice field during training camp, and that he’d then been diagnosed with sleep apnea (the migraine medication may have caused the collapse).

In spite of the early problems, the Vikings went in to the locker room at the half holding a 9-7 lead, thanks to a drive that showed what they’re capable of (given more time to gel). Visanthe Shiancoe got behind the covering linebacker for a touchdown, and Ryan Longwell had put the Vikings on the board with a field goal earlier. A blocked extra point kept the Vikings at 9.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the game was how well the Vikings’ patched-together-with-string-and-bailing-wire defensive backfield held up under the pressure:

Despite a few lapses, it’s hard to complain with a Vikings defense that held the NFL’s best offense to 14 points. In the first half, the Vikings showed they are still one of the league’s best at stopping the run. In the second half, the Saints managed to methodically push through the game. After the ugly first drive, the cornerbacks held their own. Lito Sheppard played well after a quiet training camp.

But the Vikings offense has 10 days to work out the offensive rustiness in time for Miami next Sunday in the Metrodome.

“This won’t get us derailed from our goal of the Super Bowl,” said Shiancoe, who finished with a team-high four catches for 76 yards. “It’s nothing to panic over.”

Update: Jim Souhan isn’t as kind:

Thursday night, in their season-opening, 14-9 loss in New Orleans, the Vikings’ skill-position players performed as if they needed nametags on the front of their jerseys, as if they should have taken time in the first huddle of the season to reacquaint themselves.

As in, “My name’s Brett, I’m from Hattiesburg, and I’m real sorry I held out for more money.”

On this visit to New Orleans, the Vikings needed a 12th man in the huddle just to make introductions.

Favre lived a charmed existence in 2009. He didn’t pay for his belated arrival because the Vikings started the season against Cleveland and Detroit, enabling him to make more warmup tosses than Mariano Rivera.

By the time the Vikings began facing real teams, Favre had developed a bond with Sidney Rice and a football version of telepathy with Percy Harvin.

Thursday, Favre played as if he had just driven over from his hometown of Kiln, Miss. On his tractor. With a cattail between his teeth.

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