Quotulatiousness

September 19, 2011

The “Day of Rage” turns into a damp squib

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:38

Apparently it wasn’t the start of the anti-capitalist revolution after all:

September 17 was supposed to be the Day of Rage, the starting point of an anti-capitalist revolution that (in theory) was going to sweep the country coast-to-coast. As I noted yesterday, “The plan is to protest in state capitals and major cities across the nation, but the focus of the revolution will be in New York, where a hoped-for 20,000 anti-capitalists will ‘occupy’ Wall Street.”

I dutifully sent my operatives out to cover what were to be three of the largest Day of Rage protests — in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — so humanity would have a full record of this pivotal moment in history.

Really, I should have learned my lesson by now: The bigger the build-up to a protest, and the more grandiose the promises, the louder the sound of the bellyflop onto the dustbin of irrelevancy.

In other words: “Day of Rage” was a massive FAIL.

Lots of sad photos at the link. Even the fringy-est of fringe movements were represented. As one of the photo captions says, “Down in L.A., there were so few authentic protesters, that the LaRoucheites comprised a significant proportion of the attendees.”

Vikings blow 17-point halftime lead, lose to Bucs

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:12

For the second week in a row, the Minnesota Vikings had the lead at halftime, then went on vacation for the second half of the game. Unlike last week, the Vikings lead after 30 minutes due primarily to their own efforts, with a strong running game and a passing game that gained more than 39 yards (last week’s total). It just wasn’t enough of a cushion to allow the team to check out for the second 30 minutes of play.

Mark Craig:

The Vikings blew a 10-point lead at San Diego, losing 24-17 in Week 1. But as bad as that was, the sequel was much worse considering the level to which the Vikings were dominating the league’s youngest team at home at halftime.

The Vikings led in total yards, 284-62; first downs, 17-3; rushing yards, 137-23; and, well, everything else.

“I’ve been playing a long time,” receiver Michael Jenkins said. “Eight years now, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game that different from one half to the next half.”

Obviously, a pattern has been established: The Vikings are a 30-minute team in a 60-minute league. And they trail the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions by two games in the NFC North heading into Sunday’s home game against a Lions team that has won six consecutive games and is coming off a 48-3 victory over Kansas City.

Jim Souhan:

The Vikings haven’t just begun the 2011 with two losses, they’ve blown two games with poisonous second-half performances that call into question the ability of their coaches to adapt during games, their offensive philosophy, their choice of veteran quarterbacks and their ability to fulfill the lofty expectations of ownership.

Since 1990, only 12.5 percent of NFL teams that have lost their first two games of the season have made the playoffs, and we can probably make a leap of logic and guess that an even smaller percentage made the playoffs after getting outscored 41-3 in the first two second halves of the year.

The Vikings have begun a season in which they proclaimed themselves contenders and during which they are seeking approval for a billion-dollar stadium by treating the second half the way your average downtown office worker treats Friday afternoon. They’ve taken off early.

The Christian Ponder era gets closer with each loss, but for Ponder’s sake, I hope he doesn’t need to step in this soon in his rookie season.

During the first half, Adrian Peterson went into the record books again, as he scored the first of two rushing touchdowns, moving him into first place in team history for rushing TDs.

Update: As Christopher Gates reminds us, the Vikings have to make a roster move this week to make room for Kevin Williams, who is returning after his two-week suspension in the StarCaps case. Who does he want to see get cut to clear space?

The first one would be Bernard Berrian. I said this last week, and I’ll say it again . . . this guy never should have been on the roster coming out of camp. He’s a speed receiver with no speed, and shows absolutely no will or desire when the ball is coming his way. In two games this season, he has one more reception than I do. [. . .] Or, if you’re going to cut a defensive player, look no further than Tyrell Johnson. Jamarca Sanford has clearly outplayed Johnson this season at the safety spot opposite of Husain Abdullah, and Johnson’s missed interception that could have, potentially, sealed the deal for the Vikings this afternoon is basically the last straw for me. If we’re going to try to work some young guys into the lineup this season, get Johnson the heck out of town and give Mistral Raymond some run in his place.

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September 18, 2011

Chinese censors crack down on . . . talent shows?

Filed under: China, Liberty, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:49

They’ve become too popular, and the text voting for winners sets too much of a democratic example, so China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) is ordering talent shows off the air:

The latest run of the hugely popular Super Girl contest finished on Friday. A spokesman for Hunan Satellite Television said it would not show any TV talent shows with mass participation next year because it had been accused of breaking time limits.

“Hunan Satellite Television obeys the state watchdog’s decision and will not hold similar talent shows next year,” said Li Hao.

“Instead, the channel will air programmes that promote moral ethics and public safety, and provide practical information for housework.”

[. . .]

SARFT decreed that talent shows could not be shown in prime time — between 7.30pm and 10.30pm — or screened for more than two hours a day. It also banned text voting — with some suggesting officials were concerned that the democratic method of choosing the winner was a bad influence.

Solyndra: not just crony capitalism as usual

Filed under: Environment, Government, Law, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:28

Andrew C. McCarthy shows the difference between the collapse of Solyndra and ordinary crony capitalist use of government funds:

Homing in on one of the several shocking aspects of the Solyndra scandal, lawmakers noted that, a few months before the “clean energy” enterprise went belly-up last week, the Obama Energy Department signed off on a sweetheart deal. In the event of bankruptcy — the destination to which it was screamingly obvious Solyndra was headed despite the president’s injection of $535 million in federal loans — the cozily connected private investors would be given priority over American taxpayers. In other words, when the busted company’s assets were sold off, Obama pals would recoup some of their losses, while you would be left holding the half-billion-dollar bag.

As Andrew Stiles reported here at NRO, Republicans on the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee say this arrangement ran afoul of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This law — compassionate conservatism in green bunting — is a monstrosity, under which Leviathan, which can’t run a post office, uses your money to pick winners and losers in the economy’s energy sector. The idea is cockamamie, but Congress did at least write in a mandate that taxpayers who fund these “investments” must be prioritized over other stakeholders. The idea is to prevent cronies from pushing ahead of the public if things go awry — as they are wont to do when pols fancy themselves venture capitalists.

[. . .]

The criminal law, by contrast, is not content to assume the good faith of government officials. It targets anyone — from low-level swindlers to top elective officeholders — who attempts to influence the issuance of government loans by making false statements; who engages in schemes to defraud the United States; or who conspires “to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof, in any manner or for any purpose.” The penalties are steep: Fraud in connection with government loans, for example, can be punished by up to 30 years in the slammer.

The Pentagon’s current big fear: the sequester

Filed under: Economics, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:17

George F. Will explains why Leon Panetta, the secretary of defense, is very worried about the outcome of the “supercommittee” deliberations:

This would take from military budgets nearly $500 billion, in addition to a minimum of $350 billion cuts already scheduled. An almost trillion-dollar trimming, Panetta says flatly, “cannot take place.” Actually, he knows it can: “The gun to the head could really go off.” Even without a sequester, the military “is going to be a smaller force.” And with a sequester? The 1.5 million active-duty members of the armed services and 700,000 civilian employees of the Defense Department depend on an industrial base of more than 3.8 million persons. According to the Pentagon, a sequester would substantially shrink those three numbers, perhaps adding a point to the nation’s unemployment rate. The cuts would leave the smallest Army and Marine Corps in more than a decade and the smallest tactical Air Force since this service became independent of the Army in 1947. The Navy has already shrunk almost to its smallest fleet size since World War I.

Time was, when Democrats looked at the defense budget with a skeptical squint, Republicans rallied ’round it. No more. Few tea partyers remember Washington’s hawk-versus-dove dramas. They live to slow spending, period. They are constitutionalists but insufficiently attentive to the fact that defense is something the federal government does that it actually should do. And when they are told that particular military expenditures are crucial to force projection, they say: As in Libya? Been there, don’t want to do that.

Much of the defense budget is consumed by pay and health care for uniformed personnel, who have been abused enough by repeated deployments. The priciest new weapon, the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (at least $90 million per plane), is vital for the continued salience of aircraft carriers, which are the basis of the U.S. strategic presence in the Western Pacific. Inferring China’s geopolitical intentions from its military purchases is difficult, but Panetta says guardedly that in five years China’s force projection will be “much better.” The Marines, with their smaller carriers, need a short-takeoff model F-35. Cut the number of planes built, the cost per plane rises, and the ability to recoup costs through sales to allies declines.

“One would have to go back to 1973 to find a more perilous time for the Jewish state”

Filed under: Middle East, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:58

David Harsanyi on the increasing UN pressure on Israel:

Sure, the United Nations has historically vacillated between deep irrelevance and monumental ineffectiveness. But with all its prevaricating and impotence on genuine threats to human rights across the world, next week it will be actively precipitating violence and endorsing ethnic cleansing.

It is understood that one of the preconditions for the existence of a Palestinian state is the judenrein West Bank. It will be purified of Jews, regardless of their political inclinations, Zionist or not, because effectively speaking no Jew will be able to live in the West Bank or East Jerusalem safely. Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States, Maen Rashid Areikat, has admitted as much.

[. . .]

Another onetime ally the increasingly Islamic Turkey has similarly turned on Israel, kicking out the Israeli ambassador, and ending military ties and trade pacts. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to send warships as escorts to “aid ships” in the next activist-filled flotilla trying to reach the Palestinians. A United Nations failure will only provoke more hostility and put the two nations in a potentially catastrophic position.

Supporters of Israel often speak in perfunctory tones about the existential threat Israel faces. But one would have to go back to 1973 to find a more perilous time for the Jewish state. With this vote, the United Nations is simply giving in to its seemingly pathological need to undermine Israel — no matter the circumstance, no matter the consequence.

There can be no other reason for a vote that is simultaneously so dangerous and so utterly useless.

Then again, that’s the perfect way to describe the United Nations.

September 17, 2011

Rex Murphy: The failure of the media

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:34

This is not the kind of column you expect from a long-time CBC employee. It points out the huge failing of the major media in their reporting about President Barack Obama:

As the bad economic news continues to emanate from the United States — with a double-dip recession now all but certain — a reckoning is overdue. American journalism will have to look back at the period starting with Barrack Obama’s rise, his assumption of the presidency and his conduct in it to the present, and ask itself how it came to cast aside so many of its vital functions. In the main, the establishment American media abandoned its critical faculties during the Obama campaign — and it hasn’t reclaimed them since.

Much of the Obama coverage was orchestrated sycophancy. They glided past his pretensions — when did a presidential candidate before “address the world” from the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin? They ignored his arrogance — “You’re likeable enough, Hillary.” And they averted their eyes from his every gaffe — such as the admission that he didn’t speak “Austrian.”

The media walked right past the decades-long association of Obama with the weird and racist pastor Jeremiah Wright. In the midst of the brief stormlet over the issue, one CNN host — inexplicably — decided that CNN was going to be a “Wright-free zone.” He could have hung out a sign: “No bad news about Obama here.”

On the plus side, however, he did let us know that there were 57 states in the union (although I’m still not sure of the names of the hidden 7).

Decoding book review language

Filed under: Books, Humour, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:17

Have you ever bought a book on the recommendation of a book review, then found it didn’t match up to your expectations? Here is a useful guide to what the reviewer is actually saying:

“absorbing”: “makes a great coaster” @DonLinn Don Linn, publishing consultant

“accessible”: “not too many big words” @MarkKohut Mark Kohut, writer and consultant

“acclaimed”: “poorly selling” @BloomsburyPress Peter Ginna, publisher, Bloomsbury Press

“breakout book”: “Hail Mary pass” @BookFlack Larry Hughes, associate director of publicity, the Free Press at Simon & Schuster

“brilliantly defies categorization”: “even the author has no clue what he’s turned in” @james_meader James Meader, publicity director of Picador USA

“captures the times we live in”: “captures the times we were living in two years ago” @mathitak Mark Athitakis, critic

“classroom-friendly”: “kids won’t read it unless they have to” @LindaWonder, Linda White, book promoter at Wonder Communications

NFL games, week 2

Filed under: Football — Tags: — Nicholas @ 00:10

Last week was not a great result (8-8), but I’ll hope for better outcomes this time:

  • @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

Last week 8-8 (6-10 against the spread)
Season to date 8-8

This week in Guild Wars 2 news

Filed under: Gaming — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:07

I’ve been accumulating news snippets about the as-yet-to-be-formally-scheduled release of Guild Wars 2 for an email newsletter I send out to my friends and acquaintances in the Guild Wars community.

(more…)

September 16, 2011

No free speech, please, we’re Canadian

Filed under: Cancon, Education, Law, Liberty — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:36

Ken at Popehat has a lovely summary of the “all Jews should be sterilized” fracas at York University:

Pity poor Professor Cameron Johnson at York University. He was just trying to make this fundamentally Canadian concept clear to the students in the class he was teaching by giving examples of unacceptable opinions. Really, reminding them that some opinions are unacceptable was, in the Canadian context, an act of great patriotism, akin to starting an American lecture with the Pledge of Allegiance and possibly a barbecue. In the course of being so very Canadian, Prof. Johnson mentioned that the sentiment “all Jews should be sterilized” was “unacceptable.”

[. . .]

By uttering the words, Prof. Johnson committed speechcrime. That’s a strict liability crime; intent is irrelevant. Moreover, in thinking that he could utter a series of offensive words by putting them into a specific disapproving and pedagogical context, Prof. Johnson committed a hate crime against the Moron-Canadian community, which is too stupid to grasp context, and the Entitled-Canadian community, which believes that it is un-Canadian to require them to pay close enough attention to follow context. Prof. Johnson knew or should have known that his class of 450 people would include members of the Moron-Canadian and Entitled-Canadian community.

And indeed it did — in the form of Sarah Grunfeld, a member of the Moron-Insipid-Entitled-Canadian community. Sarah Grunfeld was outraged to hear, sort of, that her professor thought that all Jews should be sterilized, and started quite a stir, complaining to York University officials and various community members. Tumult and inquisition ensued. The Canadian media acted in an appallingly un-Canadian manner, focusing on the so-called “context” of Professor Johnson’s words and the utterly irrelevant detail that he was Jewish. Grunfeld, raised by her actions into a position of leadership in the Entitled-, Insipid-, and Moron-Canadian communities, did her best to set them back on the path of right thinking

How not to run an election campaign

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:21

I’ve been referring to Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak as “McGuinty Lite” for a few months now. Christina Blizzard has the same nickname for him:

He wants all-day kindergarten, has no problem with Muslim prayer in schools — and won’t talk about a greater role for the private sector in health care.

Dalton McGuinty?

Nope. It’s Dalton Light — aka Tim Hudak.

The beleaguered PC leader seems stuck.

The wheels on his campaign bus just don’t have any traction.

He went into the campaign 12 points ahead in the polls. Now, nine days into the campaign, he’s fighting to stay even with McGuinty.

Yet even this, “me-too,” campaign, has been branded as “Tea Party North,” by the Liberals.

Hudak has failed Politics 101.

I have two theories to account for this (neither of which is particularly convincing). First theory: there is some really nasty surprise waiting to be sprung on the premier soon after the election, and Hudak wants to avoid being the patsy. Second theory: Hudak has become really comfortable as leader of the opposition and doesn’t want to risk becoming premier.

Either of those, or perhaps Hudak is really a sleeper agent of the Liberal Party. That might account for it . . . he’s being called a “Tea Party” candidate, but it must be homeopathic tea, as there’s no strength to it at all. It’s been diluted down to nothingness.

Fancy a free game?

Filed under: Gaming — Nicholas @ 12:12

If so, you’ll want to visit Steam to download a free copy of Portal this weekend:

For those of you unaware of the innovative game, Portal is a first-person platformer, in which one has to solve a series of puzzles using a teleportation device.

Launched in 2007, Portal was critically acclaimed as one of the most innovative games of the year. It was followed up this year with Portal 2, which we also found rather good.

Last Night of the Proms

Filed under: Britain, History, Media — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:10

Patrick West talks about the pro- and anti-Prom factions in British life:

When it comes to international politics, it is subconsciously understood that music can be used as a means of celebrating nationalist sentiment, or for trying to overcome it. While national anthems and folk music are employed to foment patriotism, songs such as the ‘Internationale’ and ‘The Red Flag’ represent an effort to transcend it. It’s a neat dichotomy — and it is also wrong, as last Saturday’s Last Night at the Proms demonstrated.

For those not in the know, the concert, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall, is the culmination of an annual eight-week festival of orchestral classical music, and the Last Night is its rapturous crescendo, traditionally featuring tunes that celebrate Britain/England — Edward Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance March No.1’ (which includes ‘Land of Hope and Glory’), Thomas Arne’s ‘Rule, Britannia!’, Hubert Parry’s ‘Jerusalem’ and the national anthem itself, ‘God Save The Queen’. The only place you will see Union flags on show in such vast numbers, and with such unashamed vainglory, will be on Belfast’s Shankhill Road or at a British National Party rally.

And there lies the problem for some on the liberal-left, who have traditionally sneered at this event. Many feel uneasy seeing the Union flag displayed so copiously in this musical, ersatz political rally, the ostensible message of which is that Britain is the best country in the world and all other countries are rubbish. Writing in the Guardian this week, Guy Dammann noted that the Last Night of the Proms provided ‘the opportunity to celebrate great little Britishness with no apparent irony’, as if to celebrate it with sincerity was a baffling and risible idea. The fact that the audience seems composed mostly of inebriated toffs compounds a sense of odium among the liberal-left.

Ontario’s clean energy Potemkin village

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:50

John Ivison reports on a recent photo op by Premier Dalton McGuinty:

The solar energy company touted this week by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty as a flagship of the province’s clean energy economy has halted production because of slow demand.

Mr. McGuinty was flanked by Eclipsall Energy Corp.’s workforce when he visited its Scarborough solar panel plant Tuesday, but there was no mention that the production line is temporarily shut down. When my colleague Tamsin McMahon visited the plant she found the reception desk was empty, the cafeteria was closed and only a handful of employees milling around inside the sparsely furnished building.

Leo Mednik, Eclipsall’s chief financial officer, said the production line halt is because the company has already completed its current order book. “It’s no secret that the market is slow and there have been delays. That’s part of it — part of it is logistics. Our production team went through our purchased inventory a lot quicker than expected,” he said.

Not only is the plant not working to capacity: it’s only working at all because of government subsidies:

The Liberal government’s efforts have created jobs — though the 20,000 number touted by Mr. McGuinty seems highly questionable, far less the 50,000 he says will be created by the end of next year. In addition, they are hardly high wage, high skilled jobs the Premier claims (Eclipsall pays 20% over minimum wage to its workers, who assemble glass and solar cells imported from Asia, thereby qualifying for the Liberal Green Energy Act’s 60% domestic content rule).

The question is: how sustainable are these jobs? Mr. Mednik admitted that if the domestic content rule was removed, Eclipsall and other Ontario manufacturers would not be able to survive. “Frankly, it would be very difficult for any start-up to compete” against cheaper Chinese producers, he said.

He said it is a question of when, rather than if, the 60% threshold is removed. Both the European Union and Japan have taken the FIT program to the World Trade Organization and want the local content requirements removed. They claim this Buy Ontario provision is a prohibited subsidy. The FIT program might also soon become subject to a NAFTA dispute case, after American renewable company Mesa Power Group said it would file a complaint.

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