Quotulatiousness

September 22, 2011

Detroit Lions favoured over the Vikings this Sunday

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:44

It’s actually a rare thing for Detroit to be the favourite when playing the Vikings at home. It hasn’t happened for quite some time. In fact, the last time they were the favourites was in week three . . . of the 1981 season.

Usually, when Minnesota sees Detroit coming up on the schedule, they can mark a win for that week. That is no longer true: Detroit has been improving at about the same rate that the Vikings have been disintegrating. They beat Tampa Bay at home in the season opener, then hung a vicious 48-3 beating on the Kansas City Chiefs last weekend. They’re coming in at 2-0, while the Vikings are 0-2 having blown halftime leads in both games so far this season.

Judd Zulgad, now with ESPN1500.com, thinks that a Vikings loss this week means the team will have to accept that they’re in rebuilding mode — that the current team is on the downward slide and no quick fixes are available.

It’s going to be very hard for Frazier to reverse course now and tell anyone that it’s time to look to the future. He already convinced his players that he is all in and it’s very difficult (almost unfair) to ask any coach to give up on a season.

That means Spielman would be the logical candidate to be the bad guy and set in motion a rebuilding process that could land a top-five draft pick. Spielman doesn’t have the general manager title but he is the guy that must take the long-term view of what’s best for this franchise.

A loss to the Lions means the Vikings must begin thinking about when first-round pick Christian Ponder will be ready to replace Donovan McNabb at quarterback and when other personnel changes might make the most sense.

The Ponder for McNabb swap is the obvious one — and should only be done when there is a belief that Ponder is ready to take over — but there are other veterans who could be replaced in 2011 with an eye on making sure a younger player is ready to go in 2012.

[. . .]

It also would become important to begin plucking talent off the waiver wire each week, meaning a once valuable veteran might have to be shown the door. This approach would mean sacrificing a few potential and meaningless victories in the name of upgrading the roster for the future.

None of this would be pleasant for Frazier or anyone else associated with the Vikings franchise in the short term, but in the long run it likely would be the quickest and most efficient way to get back on track.

September 21, 2011

“Our existing income tax structure is nothing short of crazy”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:50

That’s Kevin Milligan in the Globe and Mail talking about the Canadian tax structure:

Here are five nuggets of information Canadians should keep in mind as the high income taxation discussion unfolds. [. . .]

Second, our existing income tax structure is nothing short of crazy. The graph shows the marginal tax rate (the tax owed on the last dollar earned) across different income levels for a two-child family in Manitoba in 2010, the clawback of both federal and provincial refundable tax credits. (Similar graphs for more provinces are here.) What redistributive goal is such a bizarre tax structure designed to achieve? A strong argument can be made that we should improve and reform our existing income tax structure before slapping more confusion on top of it.

Third, the threshold at which one reaches the highest tax bracket is exceedingly low in Canada compared to other countries. In the United Kingdom, one reaches the highest tax bracket of 50 per cent at the Canadian dollar equivalent of $234,000. In the United States, currently the highest federal rate of 35 per cent is reached at incomes of $379,150 (U.S.). In Canada, the highest federal rate is 29 per cent, reached only at $128,800. Just to reach the level of income tax progressivity observed in the United States under President George W. Bush, Canada would need to increase this high income threshold dramatically.

Tories drop “lawful access” provisions from omnibus crime bill

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:16

That’s a bit of good news on the civil liberties front:

A controversial Internet surveillance bill has been omitted from the federal Conservative party’s proposed crime legislation.

Today, Canadian Minister of Justice and Attorney General Rob Nicholson held a press conference to introduce the Conservatives’ promised omnibus crime act, titled The Safe Streets and Communities Act, which focuses on crime and terrorism. However, an expected component of the act regarding Internet surveillance known as “Lawful Access” legislation was nowhere to be found.

The set of Lawful Access bills would have warranted Canadian law enforcement and intelligence agencies the power to acquire the personal information and activity of web users from internet service providers (ISPs). ISPs would also be required by an additional provision to install surveillance equipment on their networks.

The legislation would essentially give law enforcement the ability to track people online without having to obtain a warrant. The federal NDP and Green parties, and civil liberties groups among others decried the bill as overly-invasive, dangerous and potentially costly for internet users.

That’s the good news. The rest of the bill, as Grace Scott points out, is awash with “tough on crime” noises:

The Safe Streets and Communities Act will increase penalties for sex offenders, those caught with possession or producing illicit drugs for the purposes of trafficking, and intends to implement tougher sentencing on violent and repeat youth crime. It also plans to eliminate the use of conditional sentences, or house arrest, for serious and violent crimes.

Not much “liberal” about Britain’s Liberal Democrats

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:45

Patrick Hayes reports from the Liberal Democrat conference:

What is the most ridiculous aspect of the Liberal Democrat 2011 conference? MP Sarah Teather’s cringeworthy attempt at a stand-up routine during her speech? Or maybe business secretary Vince Cable’s attempt to paint the current economic crisis as the equivalent of a war?

Actually, far and away the most farcical element of the four-day conference so far has been the fact that the Liberal Democrats persist in calling themselves ‘Liberals’, while at the same time announcing a range of policies that could deal a bodyblow to individual freedom. From plans to introduce parenting classes, to proposals to ban Page 3 girls and give the state powers to put investigative journalists behind bars, a rebranding as the Illiberal Democrats must surely be in the pipeline.

This trend was evident before the conference had even begun, with an unprecedented vetting of conference delegates that reportedly led to lots of members refusing to attend on the basis that the checks were ‘authoritarian, disproportionate and wrong’. Police advised that at least two individuals should be banned outright from the conference, with the Lib Dems agreeing in one of the cases.

Report shows military bureaucracy defied government orders

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Military — Tags: — Nicholas @ 07:34

It’s not really a surprise that the bureaucrats don’t want to increase the size of the militia, but it is surprising that they’ve been willing to ignore direct government orders on the subject:

Canada’s bloated military bureaucracy has consistently defied explicit orders from government ministers and failed to increase the size of the army militia as directed.

The accusation is made in a scorching but carefully documented report done by pre-eminent military scholar Jack English for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and obtained in advance of its release Wednesday by only a few media outlets, including Postmedia.

It is a “wretched saga” that Mr. English describes as marked by “sandbagging, obstruction, futile wheel-spinning, and endlessly wasted staff effort.”

Using statements made by a series of defence ministers and recommendations either from special commissions or in government “White Papers” — all of them pledging or urging that the part-time militia or reserves, whose members most proudly call themselves citizen-soldiers, would grow — Mr. English shows how bureaucrats and leaders within the regular army, who saw any move to increase the militia as a threat, stubbornly stymied the wishes of their political masters.

In the numbers game, NDHQ has drawn level with the entire militia force, and like all bureaucracies, wants to continue to grow.

F-22 flies again

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:21

The months-long grounding is over:

On September 21st, the U.S. Air Force will allow its F-22 fighters to fly again. The aircraft had been grounded for 140 days because of problems with the pilot’s oxygen system. The air force is not giving out many details on exactly what the problems is, although they say a report on the F-22 oxygen system will be out by the end of the year. Each F-22 will undergo a detailed inspection before it is cleared to fly. This may have something to do with earlier remarks about toxins somehow getting into the pilot’s air supply. The problem was always about something bad in the air supply. This has kept all 168 F-22s grounded since May. The only exception was a squadron based on the Virginia coast, that was given permission to fly out of the way of hurricane Karina. Those F-22s encountered no problems with their air supply.

[. . .]

During the grounding, pilots and ground crews used simulators and (for the ground crews) maintenance exercises on the grounded aircraft to keep their skills sharp. In addition, everyone helped checking out a growing list of aircraft components in support of the search for the breathing problem). The air force was also under time pressure to fix the problem. That’s because after 210 days on the ground, aircrew have to undergo extensive retraining to regain combat flying status. This added a little more urgency to fixing the problem quickly. The grounding also left a dozen F-22s stranded at a training base, where they were for live weapons exercises. At least six new F-22s could not be delivered because of the grounding.

September 20, 2011

“In the short term, self-control is a limited resource”

Filed under: Health, Media, Science — Tags: — Nicholas @ 12:18

NPR Books exercises a bit of willpower to look at a new book by John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister:

The power to resist temptation — to pass up dessert, to endure an unpleasant experience, to defer satisfaction — is our “greatest human strength,” argue psychologist Roy F. Baumeister and science writer John Tierney in their new book, Willpower. The book delves into the science of our age-old struggle with self-control.

“The Victorians talked about this vague idea of it being some form of mental energy,” Tierney tells NPR’s Audie Cornish. “In the last 15 years we’ve discovered that it really is a form of energy in the brain. It’s like a muscle that can be strengthened with use, but it also gets fatigued with use.”

Whether you’re resisting a favorite food or completing a dreaded task, exercising self-control in different areas of your life saps the same mental energy source. Many dieters employ the out-of-sight-out-of-mind technique of hiding desirable food — and studies show there’s something to it.

China’s local and regional governments may be sitting on massive hidden debts

Filed under: China, Economics, Government, Law — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:13

As with the US or Canadian government’s debt, not all debt is held at the federal level. It may take some digging to discover what the actual debt levels might be, but it’s possible. In China, however, as local governments are forbidden to issue bonds or to borrow from banks, they’ve had to become extremely creative in finding ways to borrow money for their pet projects. Not just creative — at least in some cases — legally dubious:

About 85% of Liaoning province’s 184 financing companies defaulted on debt service payments in 2010 according to a report from the province’s Audit Office. The report also noted that 120 of these borrowers, de facto government agencies, operated at a loss last year.

Since 1994, provinces and lower-tier governments have not been permitted to issue bonds or borrow from banks. Despite the strict prohibition, their debt has skyrocketed as local officials incurred obligations through LGFVs, local government finance vehicles. The central government’s National Audit Office said these companies, at the end of last year, had taken on 10.7 trillion yuan of debt. No one, however, knows the true amount of LGFV indebtedness, and some have calculated the real amount to be more than double the official figure.

Why the disagreement as to the amount of debt? Local governments have gone out of their way to hide borrowings, perhaps in part because of their doubtful legality. As famed economic journalist Hu Shuli points out, new local officials sometimes do not know the extent of obligations left by their predecessors. There have been a number of stratagems employed, from the issuance of illegal government guarantees to the transfer of funds in roundabout routes.

H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, for the link.

Finnish MP calls for military coup in Greece

Filed under: Europe, Greece, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

I guess somebody felt they needed a bit of international headline stimulant:

Jussi Halla-aho, an MP for the populist True Finns party, wrote on social networking website Facebook on Wednesday that the Greek government should use military force against workers on strike.

“What Greece needs at this particular point in time is a military junta that would not have to worry about its popularity and could use tanks to enforce some order among strikers and rioters,” Halla-aho wrote.

The Facebook entry soon sparked outrage, with Halla-aho removing it and retracting his comment.

About that “ethnic cleansing” in Basildon

Filed under: Britain, Government, Law, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:10

All the great and the good are girding for battle over the Dale Farm evictions:

A terrible episode of ‘ethnic cleansing’ is looming. It promises to be so bad that a spokesman for the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has been helicoptered in to ‘oversee negotiations’. Amnesty International has set up a special ‘priority action’ page on its website, pleading with people to write letters of outrage to politicians. Head-tilting celebrities have turned up to raise awareness about what one journalist refers to as the ‘racist hysteria’ of the coming cleansing, including that grande dame of right-on causes, Vanessa Redgrave. Things are so dire that the BBC has sent in Fergal Keane, its softly spoken, Irish ponderer of all things evil, who doesn’t only wear his heart but also his lungs, liver and spleen on his sleeve, who cut his teeth reporting on the war in Bosnia and the calamity in Rwanda. ‘It’s a very apprehensive situation’, he intoned on last night’s news.

Oh god, what has happened? A new war in Africa? A rekindling of the old wars in Bosnia? No. Basildon Council in Essex in south-east England is planning to evict some Travellers from their plot of land in Dale Farm. That’s all. Yet watching the media coverage, perusing the millions of tweets of tear-stained concern, you could be forgiven for thinking that the so-called Battle of Dale Farm was a rerun of Bosnia 1992. That is because moral opportunists, cause-hunters, those desperate for some political momentum in their lives, have cynically transformed a small-scale spat between a council and some Gypsies into an epochal stand-off between the forces of racist hysteria and the massed ranks of decent UN cheerleaders. It speaks to the desperation of today’s wannabe moral crusaders that they are willing to infuse even the Dale Farm fallout with the kind of simple-minded moralistic lingo they usually reserve for foreign wars.

Of course, the threatened Dale Farm eviction, which was supposed to take place yesterday until the High Court in London imposed a temporary injunction against it, will be bad and distressing for the Traveller families involved. Eighty-six families could be forcibly removed, simply for building homes on land which they own yet which Basildon Council says is protected Green Belt territory. But is that any justification for using phrases such as ‘racist hysteria’ to describe Basildon Council’s actions and even conjuring up the Holocaust to describe the plight of the Travellers, with Vanessa Redgrave talking about ‘what happened during Hitler’s rule’ and demanding that ‘minorities shouldn’t be destroyed’? If there’s any hysteria here, it is among those who fantasise that we’re witnessing a rerun of Nazi evil and that it is down to conscience-exercising celebs and Amnesty letter-writers — the heroes of the hour — to stop it in its tracks.

New Times Atlas vastly overstates Greenland ice sheet shrinkage

Filed under: Americas, Books, Environment, Media, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

You know it’s a major gaffe when even the BBC’s Environment correspondent is saying things like this:

The part of News Corporation that makes Times Atlases is currently taking the same kind of kicking from scientists that some of its newspapers took from the general public over phone-hacking.

What it’s being kicked for is for claiming, in the edition that came out last week, that the Greenland ice sheet has shrunk by 15% over 12 years, necessitating the re-drawing of its boundaries.

[. . .]

The problem is, it’s not true; and glaciologists have been queuing up to say why not.

“In the aftermath of ‘Himalayagate’, we glaciologists are hypersensitive to egregious errors in supposedly authoritative sources,” said Graham Cogley from Trent University in Canada.

“Climate change is real, and Greenland ice cover is shrinking. But the claims here are simply not backed up by science; this pig can’t fly.”

As Professor Cogley was the scientist who raised the alarm over “Himalayagate” — the erroneous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contention that Himalayan glaciers could largely melt away by 2035 — he is well placed to make the comparison.

Update: Breaking! James Delingpole discovers the advance plans for the next Times Atlas:

Following its controversial decision to produce a map suggesting that Greenland has lost 15 per cent of its ice cover in the last twelve years — a loss rate disputed by most credible scientists: and even, amazingly, the Guardian agrees on this — the Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World has decided to take its new role as cheerleader for Climate Change alarmism a step further. In its upcoming 14th edition, unconfirmed rumours suggest, it will completely omit Tuvalu, the Maldives and major parts of Bangladesh in order to convey the “emotional truth” about “man made climate change.”

“All right, it may not be strictly geographically accurate to say the Maldives and Tuvalu will definitely have disappeared in about ten years time when our next edition appears,” said Times Atlas spokesman David Rose. “But did you see that picture of the Maldives cabinet holding a meeting underwater? If the Maldives government says the Maldives are drowning, they must be drowning. And frankly I think it’s despicable, all those deniers who are saying it was just a publicity stunt, cooked up by green activist Mark Lynas, to blackmail the international community into giving the Maldives more aid money while simultaneously trying to lure green Trustafarians to come and spend £1500 a night in houses on stilts with gold-plated organic recyclable eco-toilets made of rare earth minerals from China. Why would a government lie about something as serious as climate change?”

NFL week 2 results

Filed under: Football — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:03
  • √ @Buffalo – Oakland (3.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ @Detroit – Kansas City (8.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • ∅ Baltimore – @Tennessee (6.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ Cleveland – @Indianapolis (2.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • ∅ @Minnesota – Tampa Bay (3.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ @New Orleans – Chicago (7.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ @New York (NYJ) – Jacksonville (9.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ @Pittsburgh – Seattle (14.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ @Washington – Arizona (3.5) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ Green Bay – @Carolina (10.0) Sun 1:00pm
  • √ Dallas – @San Francisco (3.0) Sun 4:05pm
  • √ @Denver – Cincinnati (4.0) Sun 4:15pm
  • √ Houston – @Miami (3.0) Sun 4:15pm
  • √ @New England – San Diego (7.0) Sun 4:15pm
  • ∅ Philadelphia – @Atlanta (2.5) Sun 8:20pm
  • √ @New York (NYG) – St. Louis (6.0) Mon 8:30pm

This week 13-3 (8-8 against the spread)
Season to date 21-11

September 19, 2011

HMS Astute seaman convicted for murder of officer

Filed under: Britain, Law, Military — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:03

Able Seaman Ryan Samuel Donovan has been sentenced to life in prison for his shooting rampage on board HMS Astute earlier this year:

Able Seaman Ryan Samuel Donovan, admitted murdering Lt Cdr Ian Molyneux, 36, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, on board the nuclear submarine HMS Astute.

He also injured a second crewman, Lt Cdr Christopher Hodge, while the sub was docked in Southampton on 8 April.

Donovan, 22, of Dartford, Kent, was told he must serve at least 25 years by the judge at Winchester Crown Court.

Donavon of Hillside Road, also admitted the attempted murders of Lt Cdr Hodge, 45, Petty Officer Christopher Brown, 36, and Chief Petty Officer David McCoy, 37

Donovan, who was put on sentry duty despite being drunk, fired six shots from an SA80 rifle in the control room as local dignitaries, including Southampton City Council’s mayor, chief executive and leader, were being given a tour of HMS Astute, the court heard.

After reading about the attack, I posted an entry calling for Royston Smith’s heroism to be recognized in the next honours list.

That’s a civilian, charging a gunman armed with a battle rifle, and disarming him before the trained military personnel could intervene. There are very few people who could have reacted so quickly — and correctly — in that situation. That’s heroism.

How spendy will those whizzy F-35 aircraft end up being?

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:31

Strategy Page has a state-of-play report on the escalating cost of the F-35:

The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force are trying to agree on what the new F-35 fighter will cost. The air force insists that it is $65 million each, while the Department of Defense says when all costs are included; it will be more like $111 million each. Another number being debated is how many F-35s will actually be produced. The air force assumes 3,162, but the Department of Defense is not so sure that many will eventually be built. Total development cost is now put at $65 billion, which comes to over $20 million per aircraft if 3,162 are built. Development costs for the new U.S. F-35 fighter-bomber has grown by more than a third over the last few years. The additional development costs are accompanied by additional delays. Current estimates are that the F-35 will enter service in another 6-7 years. The Department of Defense believes production and development costs will continue to rise, and that the number to be built will decline. Both trends increase the average aircraft cost. Based on past experience, the higher Department of Defense estimates are more likely to be accurate.

And then there are operating costs. Earlier this year, after months of contentious disagreement, the U.S. Air Force came around to agreeing with U.S. Navy claims that the F-35 will cost much more to maintain, rather than (as the F-35 promoters assert) less. It was over a year ago that the U.S. Navy, after nervously watching as the manufacturing costs of the new F-35C and F-35B carrier aircraft increase, concluded that these aircraft would also be a lot more expensive to maintain. It comes down to this. Currently, it costs the navy, on average, $19,000 an hour to operate its AV-8 vertical takeoff or F-18C fighter aircraft. The navy calculated that it would cost 63 percent more to operate the F-35C (which will replace the F-18C) and the F-35B (which will replace the AV-8). These costs include buying the aircraft, training and maintaining the pilots, the aircraft and purchasing expendable items (fuel, spare parts, munitions.) The navy concluded that maintenance alone would be about a third more.

In a vicious circle, the higher the cost per plane, the fewer planes will be built, which increases the cost of the planes that do get built. At some point, the costs will get so high that foreign buyers (who are expected to buy more than half of the planned production) will reduce their orders or even back out altogether. The F-35 was supposed to be cheaper to operate than the aircraft it will be replacing, but that appears to be a badly mistaken estimate. That will also tend to ratchet down the foreign interest in purchasing the aircraft.

Why are kids using the word “gay” to mean “lame”?

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:23

Brendan O’Neill isn’t going to get letters of love and support for his current column in the Telegraph:

One thing that causes great consternation amongst schoolteachers, commentators and gay-rights activists is that young people use the word gay to mean “rubbish”. Last week it was reported that thousands of schoolchildren, some as young as four, have been reported to their local authorities for using racist or homophobic language, including using “gay” as a stand-in for “naff”. One boy was reprimanded for saying in class: “This work’s gay.” This follows other gay-as-rubbish controversies, including a tsunami of newspaper outrage when, in 2006, BBC Radio 1 presenter Chris Moyles described a mobile phone ringtone as “gay”, and even more outrage when the BBC inquiry into his remark ruled that the word gay is “often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish’. This is widespread current usage… among young people.”

But is it really such a mystery as to why the word gay has come to mean rubbish? It seems obvious to me. It is because gay culture is quite knowingly and resolutely lame. I don’t mean culture that happens to be produced by homosexuals, which includes some of the greatest art in history. No, I mean the stuff that passes for mainstream “gay culture”, foisted upon us by gay TV producers, filmmakers and magazine publishers, which is almost always shallow and camp and kitsch. That is, crap. If young people associate “gay” with “rubbish”, then they’re more perceptive than we give them credit for — they have twigged that, sadly, what is these days packaged up us as “gay culture” is almost always patronising pap.

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