Quotulatiousness

November 26, 2010

British Columbia: Canada’s Banana Republic

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:50

A story in the Globe and Mail on how Elections BC rigged the rules after the fact to reject a petition:

Elections BC rejected a Fight HST recall application as too lengthy — but did so using rules that were drafted after it received the application.

The rejection has led recall organizers to suggest the province’s chief electoral officer deliberately thwarted their attempt to get approval to launch a petition to oust a Liberal MLA who supported the harmonized sales tax, and should step down.

While Elections BC has defended its new rules — which pushed the Fight HST application over a 200-word limit by counting the acronyms MLA and HST as eight words instead of two — recall organizers expressed concern that they were not included in the application form when they downloaded it from Elections BC’s website.

“It’s a total joke. This is the kind of thing they do in banana republics … when they don’t want to have elections or they don’t want people to win. And we’re doing it right here in Canada,” said Chris Delaney, an organizer of the Fight HST campaign.

H/T to Steve Muhlberger for the link.

Marni Soupcoff says get the government out of the marriage business

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:18

Although the column was prompted by the attention-whoring actions of a British couple, the basic principle still applies in Canada:

It really doesn’t make sense for the government to be divvying up rights and benefits based on the sexual orientation of its citizens. Yes, marriage has an undeniably rich history in our cultural and serves very useful societal purposes — I don’t buy into the arguments that marriage is dead. But it’s ultimately a moral and, in some cases, religious matter that should be sanctioned (or not) by a couple’s peer group, religious group and family. It’s not rightfully a spot for government to be sticking its nose, and the fact that it does so puts it in charge of decisions it has no business making — like who is fit to be called a married couple and who should get special tax treatment based on the status relationship.

The preferable scenario, and the one which would forestall lawsuits like the Goggin/Skarsholt one, would be for the government to remove itself from the marriage business altogether.

That would mean no more government-sanctioned civil unions or marriages or references thereto in the law. Yes, that would also mean massive revisions to the tax code, family law, criminal law — really reams and reams of laws from which the government would have to extricate its judgments about couples’ legal standing.

It would also nicely short-circuit the ongoing debate on polygamy (currently active in BC, but due in your local courtroom very soon too).

Time to upgrade your rifle sights?

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:10

The Register looks at futuristic guns, including a coming-into-production sighting system:

As everyone who has read the Discworld books knows, million-to-one shots actually hit nine times out of ten. Pentagon weaponeers saw no reason why this should not also become true for US military snipers, leading them to begin work on the “One Shot” miracle sniper-scope project.

One Shot works by using a laser to measure not just the exact range to the target (this is already common practice among snipers) but also to measure the wind forces along the bullet’s line of flight. Wind is perhaps the marksman’s greatest bugbear in long-range shooting, so much so that snipers aren’t expected to achieve a first-shot kill any further off than 600m in normal circumstances.

The One Shot instrument, which will replace the telescope used by the sniper team’s spotter, will measure wind, range, inclination, air pressure and humidity. Linked to the scope on the sniper rifle, it will continually generate artificial crosshairs indicating where the bullet will actually strike: it will also indicate the likelihood of a wind shift during the projectile’s flight time, allowing the shooter to pick the best moment to fire. All the sniper has to do is move the crosshairs onto target, wait for the circle of uncertainty to stabilise, and shoot.

According to spec, the One Shot system isn’t quite as good as the Pratchett effect: it will deliver first-shot kills out to 1500m only six times out of ten rather than nine.

Rewarding bravery or giving “attaboy” awards?

Filed under: Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:45

Strategy Page reports on the huge increase in medals being awarded to US troops:

The U.S. Army has reported that some 857,000 medals have been awarded to the 1.2 million soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s 48 percent as many medals awarded during World War II, when six times as many soldiers served overseas. It’s also 30 percent of those awarded during Vietnam, where 25 percent more soldiers served. This odd pattern is the result of the excessive number of medals given out during the Vietnam war.

This has not been forgotten. Five years ago, American troops began grumbling about what was perceived as disrespectful use of Bronze Star medals as “attaboy” awards for officers and senior NCOs who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, or for lower ranking personnel you want to pin a medal on for no good reason

[. . .]

This awards inflation was a very unpopular aspect of the Vietnam war, and became a major embarrassment after the 1983 Grenada invasion (where the army tried to award more medals than there were troops involved, but the public caught wind of it and forced the brass to back off.)

Compared to the Canadian military, the US hands out a lot more medals: in my long-ago militia days, we used to joke that American recruits got medals for shining boots and using the latrine. Of course, that was right after the Vietnam era, so the “medal inflation” was perhaps at its most obvious stage.

Canadian retailers are “furious” at customers for looking to the US for cheaper prices

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:16

A brief filler piece on the Canadian Press newswire explains only part of the reason so many Canadian shoppers are headed south to do their Christmas shopping this year:

This is Black Friday in the U.S., but many Canadian retailers are a furious red at the thought of consumers heading south for bargains.

The Retail Council of Canada says there is a long list of reasons to shop north of the border.

It says retailers are a vital part of any community’s economy and it employs 10 per cent of the workforce.

It also reminds consumers that Canadian taxes — which cause much of the traffic south — help pay for health care and education.

The higher taxes are certainly a big part of the explanation, but even if you control for tax, Canadian prices are generally higher than their US counterparts. For example, a paperback I picked up at random from our coffee table (published quite recently) has a price of $7.99 on it. If you’re an American, that is. Canadians pay $10.99. The Canadian dollar is around US$0.98.

Nice little markup, eh? Add the 13% Hack-and-Slash Tax on top of that, and you know exactly why thousands of Canadians are willing to put up with long lines at the border to do their shopping in the States.

“[T]he anti-TSA movement … is really a front for the Koch brothers”

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:46

Justin Raimondo pours scorn on the recent anti-libertarian hit piece in The Nation:

Speaking of implausible fiction, The Nation recently ran a piece by Mark “I spit on libertarians” Ames and Yasha Levine, which determined that the anti-TSA movement — that seems to have sprung up like a last gasp of life from the old America — is really a front for the Koch brothers, two formerly libertarian billionaires who have become the deus ex machina of clueless “progressive” commentators who cannot otherwise explain the explosion of anti-government anti-authoritarian populism currently upending politics. Glenn Greenwald seems to have taken care of the Ames-Levine fantasists, putting them in their proper place as apologists for the Obama regime and all its works, but one more thing needs to be said:

If Ames and Levine are going to become the “go to” team for the dirt on libertarians, such as it is, they ought to learn their subject. Because the very idea of Charles and David Koch leading a national resistance movement involving civil disobedience on a massive scale is laughable: to anyone who knows them, or knows of them in more than a glancing way, this can only provoke gales of unrestrained laughter. It is sheer laziness to believe this. Indeed, if only the Brothers Koch, and the plethora of organizations their money has funded, were that radical! Unfortunately, they are not: a stodgy, boring conservatism marks their both their methods and their politics, and always has.

Ames and Levine need to do some real research. It was the anti-Koch wing of the libertarian movement, centered around LewRockwell.com, that first gave John Tyner’s act of defiance the publicity and velocity that made it go viral. And if LRC is a front for the Koch brothers, then we have truly entered Bizarro World. In that case, so too is Antiwar.com a Koch front — and so why have we been doing this fundraising campaign for the past two weeks, begging our readers to save us from oblivion?

Gee, it seems like that check from the Kochs got lost in the mail! Charles, could you please look into that? Thanks.

H/T to Matt Welch for the link.

November 25, 2010

QotD: “The Traitors and the Spendthrifts”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 14:17

The Coalition horrors warned of by the Conservatives have come to pass, at the hands of the Conservatives themselves. They have spent like drunken Trudeau-era Grits. They have compromised their principles and told a key part of their base to stuff it. They have put patronage ahead of promise in their Senate appointments. Short of holding another referendum on national unity, they are as bad as what they claim to abhor.

It should then come as no surprise that Stephen the Spendthrift is rumoured to be in bed with Giles the Traitor. The deal at hand is classic pork-barrelling: Federal subsidies for an uneconomical Quebec City NHL arena. The region is the Tories only stronghold in La Belle Province, naturally a little electoral sweetener wouldn’t go amiss. Tis’ the season to be generous, with other people’s money. The Bloc serve no function except as a pressure group for the Quebecois. Their tautological platform has only one plank: What is Good for Quebec is Good for Quebec. It’s a deal made in political heaven, or hell for those who believe that principle should play a role in politics.

The much-abused Tory base remains loyal. The question is to what? To conservative values? Unlikely. Yes, the Tories have a minority government. That does limit what they can do. Lester Pearson also had two back to back minority governments, and he introduced sweeping changes to the country, albeit most of them bad.

Is the failure of the Harper Tories one of opportunity, or courage? And should the Conservatives at long last win their majority, what mandate will they have? They have governed from the center for so long, how can they justify governing from the RIght? Won’t the rationale then become we can’t take risks because we might lose the majority? So when will the Reform come? As time passes it becomes clear that many Conservatives’ loyalty lies with Team Blue, not conservative ideas or values.

Publius, “The Traitors and the Spendthrifts”, Gods of the Copybook Headings 2010-11-25

Video of the last Harrier flight from HMS Ark Royal

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:03

The Two Scotts disfavour the Redskins

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:12

In their weekly football predictions, Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid both pick the Vikings to win:

Minnesota (plus 3) at Washington

Feschuk: First Wade Phillips is canned. Then Norv Turner’s team starts winning. And this week Brad Childress gets fired. Together, these events represent an unspeakable tragedy for football comedy. What are we supposed to do now? Who among NFL coaches shall become the new target of lazy jokes about vacant stares and gravy sandwiches? The obvious choice is Marv Lewis, whose team quit on him so badly against the Bills that I’m pretty sure his linebacking corps was a trio of avatars being controlled by the ghosts of the Three Stooges. But I’m backing a long shot — I’m putting my money on Mike Shanahan. With Donovan McNabb as his quarterback, with Clinton Portis out for the year, with a defence that ranks among the worst in the NFL, he’s going to have every opportunity to deploy his famed Flaring Nostrils of Dismay. Pick: Minnesota.

Reid: Vikes new head coach Leslie Frazier used the word ‘wholeheartedly’ to describe the way he’ll welcome Brett Favre’s input on the offense. That’s a good word. Another one would ‘temporarily’ since Favre’s first suggestion was the worst idea he’s had since he mistook his swinging single for postcard material. Favre complained the playbook is too long, too hard to remember and the schemes are too complicated. And remember, this is no dummy talking. He’s the leading passer of all time and a member of the Kodak Picture Maker loyalty program. If he develops more than 50 photos at one time, he gets his doubles for free. Maybe Jenn Sterger has a friend. Pick: Minnesota.

Publius argues against Julian Fantino’s candidacy in Vaughan

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:50

Publius thinks that Julian Fantino does not deserve the easy ride he’s getting in his attempt to win the Vaughan by-election:

The image of the crime-fighting crusader contrasts sharply with the OPP’s inaction during the occupation of the Douglas Creek Estate. Fantino’s status as a star candidate for the Conservative Party belies opposition from genuine conservatives.

In his four years in power Stephen Harper has played bait and switch with the Canadian electorate. He has talked of conservative values, and fear mongered on the dangers of a Liberal-NDP coalition government, while running a government which is fiscally to the Left of those of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. In Julian Fantino he has again offered Canadians a false bill of goods, a law and order candidate who, as OPP commissioner, failed to uphold basic law and order.

What has allowed the Prime Minister to get away, so far, with the candidacy of Julian Fantino is the near silence the MSM has offered on the Caledonia tragedy. With the honourable exception of Christie Blatchford, the media has largely ignored the near anarchy which persisted for years in a Canadian small town, all within driving distance of Toronto. Canadian television journalists should long ago have stopped, if only for a moment, chasing down crooked used car salesmen, and paid attention to what should have been the biggest news story of the last five years. Placing the violence of Caledonia in Canadian living rooms, might have ended the tragedy and pain much sooner.

Even China may not be able to afford their High Speed Rail network

Filed under: China, Economics, Japan, Railways, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:24

By way of Hit and Run, a brief note of caution about the headlong pace of construction of China’s High Speed Rail:

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) reported to the State Council recently, urging the large-scale high-speed railway construction projects in China to be re-evaluated. The CAS worries that China may not be able to afford such a large-scale construction of high-speed rail, and such a large scale high-speed rail network may not be practical.

[. . .] Under the current plan, the central government has approved to build, by 2020, 16,000 km of high speed rail providing access to about 90% of the Chinese population.

[. . .]

The report submitted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences said China’s high-speed rail construction has caused debt that has already reached unsustainable levels; particularly since the end of 2008, the government introduced a stimulus plan to fight the global economic crisis and the size of local government borrowing is already very high

As Ronald Bailey points out, China is now occupying the same position in American thoughts that Japan did thirty years ago — the economic juggernaut that is poised to crush weak and defenceless American business. The recent gushing about how wonderful China’s HSR system is and how America should build one too are really just echoes of the 1980’s lament on how Japan’s economic model worked so much better than messy US mixed-market capitalism.

Back in the 1980s, I was a producer for a national weekly PBS foreign policy show called American Interests. We ran a lot of nifty programs on various aspects of the Cold War. Another abiding obsession of the chattering classes was the coming triumph of Japan Inc. over a hapless America. We regularly broadcast shows featuring the likes of Robert Reich, Chalmers Johnson (see H&R obit from yesterday), and Clyde Prestowitz predicting that the wise bureaucrats at the helm of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry deftly deploying their industrial policy jujitsu would soon bury us Yanks. As evidence, critics of undirected American capitalism pointed out that Japan’s economy was growing at 6 to 8 percent per year. Japan was exporting its way to prosperity and the U.S. was running a huge trade deficit with the East Asian powerhouse. Japan could do no wrong and America could do no right. Then the Japanese bubble burst.

Twenty years later, the new meme of would-be industrial policy mavens is China Inc. Promoters include Thomas Friedman and Clyde Prestowitz. China is growing at a blistering pace of 10 percent per year and exporting its way to prosperity. Once again, we are told that East Asian capitalism directed from the top by wise bureaucrats is going to outcompete the United States and toss us into the dustbin of histoy.

“They took more than 400, highly detailed photographs of the dig”

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:09

By way of A Blog About History, a story about a valuable set of over 400 photographs of the Sutton Hoo excavations:

Like the original ship burial, this remarkable find has laid unseen and forgotten for a long time. Tucked away in a dusty storeroom were a couple of fairly nondescript cardboard boxes.

Inside these unprepossessing packages were a photographic treasure trove which sheds new light on the discovery and the excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

Inside the boxes were more than 400 photographs taken during the summer of 1939 by two visiting school teachers Barbara Wagstaff and Mercie Lack.

It is believed that they had contacts with The British Museum which is why they were given access to the site but very little is known about them.

They took more than 400, highly detailed photographs of the dig — far more than the 29 official shots taken by the British Museum photographer.

The pictures have laid forgotten until now; as a selection of them are forming the centrepiece of a new exhibition at Sutton Hoo.

It’s hard to believe that the British Museum didn’t have a more comprehensive formal photographic record of the excavations.

November 24, 2010

End of an era

Filed under: Britain, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 18:49

The last Harrier takes off from HMS Ark Royal earlier today:

Lt. Cdr. James Blackmore was the last Harrier pilot to launch from HMS Ark Royal, noting that “this is truly a memorable day.” But as it is never a good idea to tell your bosses they are a bunch of idiots, he also adds that “we accept the decision to decommission both the Harrier and HMS Ark Royal; however, of course the final launch will be emotional.”

More information at Aviation Week.

Sexting . . . or was it attempted extortion?

Filed under: Football, Law, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 15:02

A report at Viking Update may explain why the NFL’s investigation into the Favre-Sterger “sexting” situation has taken so long:

Reese told The Associated Press that he called Bus Cook, Favre’s agent, to let him know about an Internet story — first thrown out by Deadspin.com — that was going to purport that lewd photos had been sent by Favre to Sterger. Apparently, Reese was doing a pre-emptive professional courtesy.

However, Reese said that Cook’s response was to ask “if there was a specific figure that could make this go away.”

Asked about that, Cook responded with a statement claiming that Sterger’s manager and lawyer have made “numerous overtures to me” — claiming six such calls between the two of them. Cook said there was never any intention of paying them because there is no reason to pay them, adding that “their attempts to negotiate privately and through the media have failed.”

If it can be proved that Sterger’s people were seeking out some form of cash settlement, extortion is a crime that is investigated and prosecuted. It would seem the truth lies somewhere in between the polar opposite stories being told by the agents. But, if there is a case of hush money being thrown around or blackmail being requested, this story may have more legs than anyone could have imagined.

I had wondered why the NFL’s investigation — which should have occupied a few days at most — still hasn’t come to any conclusions.

Geek Speak interviews Lois McMaster Bujold

Filed under: Books, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:08

If you haven’t read Cryoburn, be warned that there are some spoilers in the interview (this excerpt is spoiler-free):

I would have been content to leave the series on the high note of A Civil Campaign, but in the course of the amicable negotiations involved in taking The Curse of Chalion elsewhere, I ended up with an option-filling contract with Baen Books, hence Diplomatic Immunity. For a time, I wasn’t sure if I would alternate books between the two publishers or not, but I got on rather a roll with the fantasies for Eos. Happily, I was able to come up with a second upbeat organic closure for the series with Diplomatic Immunity, after which I turned to Paladin of Souls. (For a while, I had the two Chapter Ones on my plate at the same time, which basically resulted in nine months of writer’s block, at which point I decided to just do Diplomatic Immunity first. Some fortunate, prolific writers seem to be able, efficiently, to keep several projects going at once; it appears I am not one of them.)

[. . .]

The notion of exploring the wider social implications of cryonics, a well-established technology in the series, had been kicking around in my head for at least fifteen years. And the vision of an opening scene where a drug-allergy-addled Miles has a hallucinatory meeting with a street kid, no further story or setting attached, had also been lurking for a long time. (On some level, I think this unanchored scene was a really twisted re-visioning of the opening of Heinlein’s classic Citizen of the Galaxy.) I put the two together, and suddenly hit critical mass. Thematic implications followed.

[. . .]

Ethnic diversity has always been out there; all the colony worlds in Miles’s universe (i.e., everyplace but Earth) are much shaped by their founder populations. We’ve only seen a handful, out of a supposed sixty to one hundred settled worlds/stations/systems; I just haven’t worked around to all the possibilities. (Readers keep wanting me to go back to Vorbarr Sultana, where all their friends are. It’s as frustrating as trying to take a teenager on vacation.)

And for those Vorkosiverse fans hoping for yet another fix after Cryoburn, be of good cheer: Lois is working on a new project with the working title Ivan: His Booke (no, that’s not what it’ll end up being published as).

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