Quotulatiousness

August 12, 2015

Who might buy a Mistral?

Filed under: Europe, France, Military, Russia — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At the International Business Times, Christopher Harress reports on the two Mistral-class helicopter carriers France built for Russia and is now trying to find new homes for:

The Sevastopol (left) and the Vladivostok warships, two Mistral class LHD amphibious vessels ordered by Russia from STX France, are seen in St. Nazaire, France, Dec. 20, 2014. Jean-Sebastien Evrard/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The Sevastopol (left) and the Vladivostok warships, two Mistral class LHD amphibious vessels ordered by Russia from STX France, are seen in St. Nazaire, France, Dec. 20, 2014. Jean-Sebastien Evrard/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Inside the sprawling dockyard in the ancient town of St. Nazaire in southwestern France sits $1.2 billion worth of unsold naval hardware. Despite having never left the dock, the two Mistral helicopter landing ships, originally built by France for use in the Russian navy, inadvertently have become involved in the growing international dispute between Russia and the West over the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine.

Now they are causing problems in France.

Two days after managing to negotiate a way out of the deal with Moscow that had become a divisive, ethical and political dilemma in Europe, France faces the fresh challenge of looking for a new buyer that has both the military need and the hard cash for the two 21,000 ton warships.

“I think this will be a difficult product to sell,” said Dakota Wood, senior research fellow of defense programs at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. “Military ships are highly specialized and designed for a specific purpose that accounts for all the weapons systems and unique specifications that the navy in questions needs. In this case, the spacing and logistics to accommodate the unique aircraft that Russia was going to use. What other country shares those exact specifications?”

With Canada in the middle of a long, long election campaign, there’s no point in pretending that one or both of the ships might end up as part of the Royal Canadian Navy (unlike a few earlier reports), so France is forced to look further abroad for countries that have both the ready money (like Saudi Arabia) and the pressing need (uh, like Saudi Arabia).

Better hops through science

Filed under: Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

At Wired, Katie M. Palmer discusses an interesting (if only to brewers and beer fans) development in the quest for better beer:

For craft breweries, originality is everything. Your favorite microbrew prides itself on the particular combination of grains, yeast, and hops that go into its fermented nectar. Regardless of the magic that goes into the recipe, though, a lot of those ingredients come from the same big suppliers — bulk barley, high-yield yeast. So when agricultural geneticist Sean Myles was visiting his brewing buddies over at Tatamagouche Brewing Company in Nova Scotia, the conversation turned quickly to the one place where microbreweries can really distinguish themselves: hop varieties.

“I’m a craft beer fanatic…a little bit,” says Myles, who researches at Dalhousie University. “I ended up hanging around the hop yard, and we were taking a look at the vines.” In Nova Scotia, brewers grow the same varieties of hops you’d see elsewhere — Cascade, Willamette, Fuggle — which add aroma, flavor, and bitterness to a beer while helping to preserve it. But the vines don’t thrive like they do on the dryer, warmer west coast. The region’s high humidity makes the plants vulnerable to mildew. Myles looked at the hops growing in the brewers’ backyard, stunted and suffering from fungus, and had an idea: “I said, well, let’s go get some pollen.”

So Myles and Hans Christian Jost from Tatamagouche traveled from Nova Scotia to Corvallis, Oregon, where the USDA has one of the biggest hop collections in the world. “In order to get new varieties you need to let these plants have sex and generate some offspring,” says Myles. The National Clonal Germplasm Repository — which includes a gene bank in addition to physical collections of berries, mint, and nuts — is one of the only places where hopheads have access to pollen from male plants. (The pine cone-shaped hops that go into your beer are the flower of female plants, so most growers don’t bother keeping any males around.)

At the USDA hop library, which has dozens of varieties bred for different taste profiles, disease resistance, and viability in different climates, Myles worked with hop expert John Henning to find four different male mildew-resistant hops. But he couldn’t take the plant material across the border to Canada — so he stuck baggies over the top of the plants, collected their pollen, and brought it back to sprinkle on top of the female flowers grown by the brewery.

That’s the beginning of what will be a multiple-year process of growing, seed collection, and growing again to select the most mildew-resistant plants that still keep their floral hop character. When the brewers are done, they’ll have a unique variety of hops that they can call their own — and hopefully grow more of, thanks to its improved mildew protection.

“… premiers look to Ottawa for one reason and one reason only: To beat the Prime Minister … over the head with their begging bowls”

Filed under: Cancon, Government — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Richard Anderson explains why Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is upset with Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

It is a time honoured tradition that premiers look to Ottawa for one reason and one reason only: To beat the Prime Minister of the day over the head with their begging bowls. What Kathleen Wynne is looking for is not a “partnership” but a ceaseless no-strings-attached flow of federal money. Like a petulant teenager the sextuagenarian premier always wants more and offers little in return. Prime Minister Harper has wisely refused to play her game.

[…]

Now imagine that you’re Kathleen Wynne — please try to subdue the gag reflex — and billions of dollars now flow into the provincial coffers from this de facto payroll tax. Perhaps the money gets tossed into general revenues. Queen’s Park then turns arounds and issues IOUs to the “arm’s length board” in the form of increasingly worthless provincial bonds. The pension would for actuarial purposes be “fully funded” but as a practical matter one pocket of government is borrowing from the other.

But perhaps the Wynnesters are a tad more clever than all that. The revenues from this payroll tax go directly to the allegedly “arms length” investment board. Nothing goes into general revenues and the Liberals allow themselves a patina of fair dealing. The board, however, will almost certainly have its investment guidelines laid out by the government. Those guidelines, by the strangest coincidence, will likely have an “invest in Ontario” component.

Some of the money will get used to buy up provincial bonds, lowering the government’s cost of borrowing at a time when capital markets are getting skittish about Ontario debentures. Quite a lot of the rest will be used to fund infrastructure projects, private-public sector partnerships and other initiatives that will, mysteriously, favour Liberal allies. The Chretien era Adscam scandal will seem like chump change in comparison.

How Buildings Learn – Stewart Brand – 3 of 6 – “Built for Change”

Filed under: Architecture, Randomness, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 10 Jun 2012

This six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997. I presented and co-wrote the series; it was directed by James Muncie, with music by Brian Eno.

The series was based on my 1994 book, HOW BUILDINGS LEARN: What Happens After They’re Built. The book is still selling well and is used as a text in some college courses. Most of the 27 reviews on Amazon treat it as a book about system and software design, which tells me that architects are not as alert as computer people. But I knew that; that’s part of why I wrote the book.

Anybody is welcome to use anything from this series in any way they like. Please don’t bug me with requests for permission. Hack away. Do credit the BBC, who put considerable time and talent into the project.

Historic note: this was one of the first television productions made entirely in digital — shot digital, edited digital. The project wound up with not enough money, so digital was the workaround. The camera was so small that we seldom had to ask permission to shoot; everybody thought we were tourists. No film or sound crew. Everything technical on site was done by editors, writers, directors. That’s why the sound is a little sketchy, but there’s also some direct perception in the filming that is unusual.

QotD: The Relative

Filed under: Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The normal man’s antipathy to his relatives, particularly of the second degree, is explained by psychologists in various tortured and improbable ways. The true explanation, I venture, is a good deal simpler. It lies in the plain fact that every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself. They exhibit his qualities in disconcerting augmentation or diminution; they fill him with a disquieting feeling that this, perhaps, is the way he appears to the world and so they wound his amour propre and give him intense discomfort. To admire his relatives whole-heartedly a man must be lacking in the finer sort of self-respect.

H.L. Mencken, “Types of Men 12: The Relative”, Prejudices, Third Series, 1922.

August 11, 2015

The range and striking power of the Card and Krueger study

Filed under: Business, Economics, Food, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At Coyote Blog, Warren Meyer explains how one particular economic study wields far more influence in the fast food/minimum wage debate than any other similar study:

Pick a progressive on the street, and in the unlikely event they can name any economic study, that study will probably be Card and Krueger’s study of the effect of a minimum wage increase in New Jersey. Sixty bazillion studies have confirmed what most of us know in our bones to be true, that raising the price of labor decreases demand for that labor. Card and Krueger said it did not — and that a minimum wage increase may have even increased demand for labor — which pretty much has made it the economic bible of the Progressive Left.

What intrigues me is that Card and Krueger specifically looked at the effect of the minimum wage on large chain fast food stores. In this study (I will explain the likely reason in a moment) they found that when the minimum wage increased for all businesses in New Jersey, the employment at large chain fast food restaurants went up.

So I wonder if the Progressives making this ruling in New York thought to themselves — “we want to raise the minimum wage. Well, the one place where we KNOW it will have no negative effect from Card and Krueger is on large fast food chains, so…”

By the way, there are a lot of critiques of Card & Krueger’s study. The most powerful in my mind is that when a minimum wage is raised, often the largest volume and highest productivity companies in any given business will absorb it the best. One explanation of the Card & Krueger result is that the minimum wage slammed employment in small ma and pa restaurants, driving business to the larger volume restaurants and chains. As a whole, in this theory, the industry saw a net loss in employment and a shift in employment from smaller to larger firms. By measuring only the effect on larger firms, Card and Krueger completely missed what was going on.

The Forgotten War Heroine – Milunka Savic I WHO DID WHAT IN WW1?

Filed under: History, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Published on 10 Aug 2015

Even though Milunka Savic was one of the highest decorated soldiers of the entire Great War, she was forgotten soon after it ended. Her great deeds for the Serbian Army and even the impossible fact that she was serving as a female soldier became lost and were only recently discovered. Find out all about the forgotten Serbian fighter which is now considered a war heroine with Indy.

Great artists (reluctantly) explain their work to moderns

Filed under: Humour, Media, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

John Seed forces some great artists of the past to describe their work as if they were modern artists:

“If the great European artists of the past were alive today, what kinds of statements would they need to write to explain and justify their work?”

This summer I asked myself that question over two dozen times for a small, humor book that I have been developing. I hope you will find the sampling of seven statements below funny and even a bit poetic. Five of them were written specifically for Hyperallergic and two are from my new book.

Great art explained - da Vinci
Great art explained - Delacroix

H/T to Never Yet Melted for the link.

Byzantine Empire: Justinian and Theodora – III: Purple is the Noblest Shroud – Extra History

Filed under: Europe, History, Middle East — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Published on 4 Jul 2015

A group of monks declared sanctuary for two hooligans from the demes (Constantinople’s fanatical chariot racing factions) who had miraculously survived a hanging. The public wanted them pardoned for their crimes, so when Justinian made his public appearance at the next chariot race, they begged him to have mercy. When Justinian refused, the crowd turned on him and became a rioting mob that tore through the streets of Constantinople. During the Nika Riots, they burned down neighborhoods and even the Hagia Sophia cathedral, rampaging until Justinian agreed to pardon the two men from the demes. Now, however, the mob would not accept that. They demanded that he fire his advisors. Then they decided to appoint their own emperor, a man named Hypatius who was related to the previous emperor Anastasius. Assaulted on all sides, Justinian made plans to flee, only to be confronted by Theodora. She gave a now famous speech asking whether he would rather live a failure or die an emperor, announcing that she would choose the latter. Justinian followed her lead and made new plans to retake his city. He called Belisarius and Mundus, his best generals, to marshal a force. He also sent the eunuch Narses to bribe one faction of the demes and begin dismantling their leadership. Then he ordered his forces to invade the Hippodrome, where they cut down some thirty thousand civilians and executed the false emperor Hypatius. Justinian’s reign was once again secure.

QotD: The Environmentalist religion

Filed under: Environment, Media, Politics, Quotations, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Environmentalism does indeed tell its adherents “what to eat” (pesticide-free organic food, preferably grown nearby to cut down on trucking) and “how to travel” (by public transportation or, better yet, bicycle). But it also lays down rules on nearly every aspect of life in a consumer economy: how to wash your clothes (seldom); how to wash yourself (take a shower, not a bath, and use a low-flow showerhead); how to light your house (with fluorescent bulbs); how to choose your TV (look for the Energy Star logo!); how to go to the bathroom (with high-efficiency toilets and recycled paper); how to invest, clean, sleep, and dress (in environmentally friendly companies, with nontoxic chemicals, on sheets made of “sustainable fibers,” and in clothes made of the same); and even how to procreate (Greenpeace has issued a guide to “environmentally friendly sex”).

Think about the life that a truly conscientious environmentalist must lead! Compared with it, the devout Muslim’s five daily prayers and the pious Jew’s carefully regulated diet are a cakewalk. What the British historian Alfred Cobban wrote about totalitarianism — that it “takes the spiritual discipline of a religious order and imposes it on forty or sixty or a hundred million people” — applies perfectly to environmentalism, except for the part about imposition. And there, one might give Jonah Goldberg’s answer in Liberal Fascism: “You may trust that environmentalists have no desire to translate these voluntary suggestions into law, but I have no such confidence given the track record of similar campaigns in the past.” Recycling mandates come to mind, as does the federal law that will impose silly-looking spiral lightbulbs on us all by 2014.

There’s also a close resemblance between the environmental and biblical views of history, as the late novelist Michael Crichton pointed out in a widely reprinted speech. “Environmentalism is in fact a perfect twenty-first-century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths,” Crichton said. “There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all.” That judgment day currently assumes the form of various global-warming disasters that will happen unless we immediately perform still more rituals. Never mind that the science so urgently instructing us to reduce carbon emissions — thus hobbling economic growth and prosperity around the world — is so young, and so poorly understood, that it can’t explain why global warming seems to have stalled over the last decade. Far more persuasive is the argument from faith: we’d better repent, because the End is nigh.

Barack Obama doubtless tapped into environmentalists’ spiritual longings when he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination. “Generations from now,” he proclaimed, “we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.” Italics mine; grandiloquent prophecy his.

Benjamin A. Plotinsky, “The Varieties of Liberal Enthusiasm: The Left’s political zealotry increasingly resembles religious experience”, City Journal, 2010-02-20.

August 10, 2015

Vikings beat Steelers 14-3 in 2015 Hall of Fame game

Filed under: Football — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:37

The NFL preseason is finally underway with last night’s Hall of Fame game played in Canton, Ohio between the Vikings and the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers rested many of their starters (Ben Roethlisberger was not even in uniform for the game), while the Vikings’ starters only played brief stints before handing over to backups. At 1500ESPN, Andrew Krammer rounds up the action:

Bobbled interceptions, special teams gaffes, whiffed tackles and an injured kicker.

The NFL’s exhibition slate opened in mid-preseason form as the Vikings and Steelers played to a 14-3 final in Canton, Ohio on Sunday night — and it came with a little bit of everything.

Pittsburgh kicker Shaun Suisham broke the ice with a 36-yard field goal to give the Steelers a 3-0 lead, just before Suisham left the game with a knee injury after attempting a tackle along the sideline. Rookie tight end MyCole Pruitt’s 34-yard catch-and-run on a crossing route put the Vikings up for good at 7-3. Running back Joe Banyard converted rookie Stefon Diggs’ big punt return into a one-yard touchdown run for the 14-3 lead that stood as final.

Here are five takeaways main takeaways from the first exhibition action:

• CB Trae Waynes with work to do: Reminds you a little of Xavier Rhodes doesn’t it? Rookie Trae Waynes drew three defensive contact penalties as he played the entire game. It wasn’t a pretty debut, but perhaps necessary as coach Mike Zimmer and his defensive staff work to mold the former Michigan State cornerback into a NFL-caliber player. He played a lot of off coverage, something relatively new to him in the NFL, and showed his room for improvement, including on a 35-yard one-handed grab by Shakim Phillips, who flew past Waynes, playing off, and shook Waynes’ arm bar for the impressive grab. Waynes was flagged for illegal contact on the play. It’s really no cause for concern. Rhodes went from penalty magnet to tough assignment in one year under Zimmer and this is just the beginning of Waynes’ education.

• Starters play one series apiece: Teddy Bridgewater returned from Florida after dealing with a personal matter to play one series for the Vikings. He went 5-for-6 for 44 yards on seven passing plays, adding a six-yard scramble. He went 1-for-2 on third-down attempts, converting a 3rd-and-5 with a completion to tight end Kyle Rudolph. The drive ended after undrafted rookie fullback Blake Renaud’s lead block was blown up on Jerick McKinnon’s 4th-and-1 attempt. Eight different Vikings caught the first nine completions. (We discuss those impressive fifth-round picks below)

Save for Gerald Hodges, Audie Cole and Waynes, the defensive starters saw just three plays in one series. The starters forced a three-and-out against mainly Steelers’ backups, including quarterback Landry Jones. Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown and Maurkice Pouncey did not play for the Steelers. Hodges got the start at strong-side linebacker for Anthony Barr, who didn’t travel as he recovers from inflammation in his surgically-repaired left knee. Cole got the start in the middle, tipping a 3rd-and-13 pass that was completed anyway to rookie Sammie Coates for 12 yards. Hodges took advantage of his opportunities with solid open-field tackles.

At the Daily Norseman, Christopher Gates discusses the game:

Pittsburgh put up the first points of the game nearly halfway through the second quarter on a 36-yard field goal by Shaun Suisham, taking a 3-0 lead. The Vikings answered on the ensuing drive, with Mike Kafka matriculating the ball down the field and finding a wide open MyCole Pruitt for a 34-yard touchdown pass to make the score 7-3 in favor of Minnesota.

That’s how they went into the locker room, and neither team could get much going in the second half … until rookie Stefon Diggs got an opportunity to do some damage. Diggs took a punt from Brad Wing and, after a couple of nifty moves, took the ball all the way down to the Pittsburgh 1-yard line. (The Vikings threw a challenge flag, thinking that Diggs had gotten the ball into the end zone, but the call was upheld.) Joe Banyard took the ball into the end zone on the next play, extending the Minnesota lead to 14-3.

That ended the scoring for the evening. The two teams exchanged turnovers later on in the third quarter, both thanks to bobbles by tight ends. First, rookie Taylor Heinicke threw a pass to Chase Ford that Ford was unable to handle and resulted in an interception by cornerback Kevin Fogg. On the next play, however, Landry Jones hit tight end Jesse James, but he fumbled the ball and Vikings’ linebacker Brian Peters wound up falling on it. That pretty much ended the excitement, such as it was, for the evening.

Kafka wound up leading the Vikings in passing, completing 7-of-10 for 66 yards and a touchdown. Heinicke also went 7-for-10 passing, but had just 51 yards and the one interception. Bridgewater, as we mentioned, went 5-for-6 for 44 yards.

Matt Asiata led the Vikings in rushing with six carries for 30 yards. Joe Banyard had the most carries for Minnesota with seven, and wound up with 22 yards and his 1-yard touchdown run. MyCole Pruitt led the Vikings in both receptions and yardage on the evening, snagging four passes for 51 yards and the long touchdown.

The Vikings’ defense asserted themselves fairly well on the evening, allowing Jones. . .who played the entire game for the Steelers. . .to complete just 50 percent of his passes, as Jones went 16-of-32 for 135 yards. The Vikings also held the Steelers to just 68 yards rushing on 25 carries.

Minnesota will be back in action on Saturday, 15 August, as they will host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at TCF Bank Stadium. The Steelers play again on Friday, as they’ll make a trip to Jacksonville to take on the Jaguars.

Price Controls and Communism

Filed under: Economics, History — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:48

Published on 25 Feb 2015

What happens when the prices of all goods are controlled? Under communism, or a command economy, this is exactly what occurs. As a result, all of the effects of price controls become amplified: there are even more shortages or surpluses of goods, lower product quality, longer lines and more search costs, more losses in gains from trade, and more misallocation of resources. As we have seen, universal price controls destroy market coordination and create a system of planned chaos in which it becomes more difficult for consumers to get the goods and services they want and need.

Toronto craft brewers and beer cans

Filed under: Business, Cancon — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Ben Johnson explains the rising popularity of beer cans even among microbreweries in the Toronto area:

Whether it be memories of your dad’s garage fridge filled with industrial lager in little tins or visions of shotgunning affordable lagers at college parties, beer cans have, for the most part, gotten a bad rap as something like the poor-man’s beverage container.

But that’s quickly changing.

Increasingly, as Toronto’s craft beer scene booms and the city’s brewers seek out the best ways to sell their beer, cans are becoming the preferred option. But why?

Jeff Rogowsky, the co-founder of Session Craft Canning, has seen the popularity of cans grow in the last few years. Rogowsky’s company is a mobile operation that brings canning capabilities to craft brewers who often can’t afford their own expensive canning lines.

I spoke with Rogowsky via email and he told me that he thinks the increased popularity of cans is largely being driven by consumer demand. “Canning gained popularity,” he says, “because it allowed people to take beer to more places–golf courses, beaches, in a backpack, to a movie theatre–cans are infinitely more portable and easier to travel with.”

QotD: Rioters

Filed under: Law, Media, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

My observation of rioters, admittedly from a distance and refracted through cameras, is that they enjoy rioting. Pride is not the only thing that goeth before destruction; human nature does too. I certainly know myself the pleasures of destruction, and knew them as a child: still when I dispose of my bottles in the bottle bank I am disappointed if a few of them do not break with a gratifying tinkle. When I am in a temper (which is not often these days), I know the momentary relief and pleasure that a broken window would bring me. But I have a duty not to relieve myself in this way; everyone does.

When the destructive urge is allied to a sense of purpose and righteousness, it is at its most dangerous, for then one denies that one is deriving pleasure from one’s actions — one is only doing what is right.

There is more that might be said about the violent protesters in Ferguson, as elsewhere. It is true, of course, that no one can be equally moved by all the injustices in the world; if such a person existed, his life would be one long protest against injustice and he would have no time for the enjoyment of the ordinary things of life. The best way to be a bore, said Voltaire, is to say everything; and the second best way would be to protest about everything. But still one has a duty to keep one’s wrath in bounds.

I am not against protest as such. But where someone’s protest against one thing is very much greater than against another that is equally near and in aggregate as serious, one may suspect his dishonesty or bad faith. It is true, of course, that a killing by an agent of the state is particularly heinous, especially if part of a pattern, but it is not infinitely serious by comparison with other killings, nor is it the only serious killing. Though Ferguson is not a particularly violent town (its rate of crimes of violence is about average for that of the United States), five people were murdered there in 2011 without arousing the kind of agitation that has captured, and perhaps even captivated, the attention of the world for the last few days. There are places near Ferguson where the violent crime rate is four times higher than in Ferguson, but there has never been a protest of the same order against the depredations of criminals there.

I try to imagine what it would take to make me throw bricks through windows, ransack buildings, and so forth. Having myself suffered only minor injustices and been responsible for my own failures in life, it takes a special effort of the imagination. But even after I have made that effort, I still cannot see a logical or justifiable connection between protest at injustice and looting a store.

Theodore Dalrymple, “Indulging in Destruction”, Taki’s Magazine, 2014-08-24.

August 9, 2015

Bob Rae then, and Bob Rae now

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

I missed when Colby Cosh started writing for the National Post a while back, and only just remembered to pick up the RSS feed for his column, so this one is nearly a month old (I’m hoping that the Post has given up on their goofy licensing idea for bloggers, which was why I stopped reading or linking to the paper when they introduced it):

Ever since May, when Alberta raised the orange flag of rebellion and keelhauled its Progressive Conservatives, we have heard much about the danger that Rachel Notley will turn out to be another Bob Rae. Every time I have heard this, I have asked myself a question: which Bob Rae?

I know they mean the callow young Rae who, as premier of Ontario, blew up the welfare rolls, fiddled with rent control and pay equity while the treasury hemorrhaged and struggled tumultuously against NAFTA. But what, I wondered, if Notley turned out to be more like Liberal-elder-statesman Bob Rae, who is often a more eloquent defender of markets than just about any Conservative politician one can name? (Fine: I’ll spot you Maxime Bernier.) The older he gets, the more explicit Rae becomes about his Damascene conversion to the primacy of economic competitiveness.

In May, Rae wrote a little-noticed article about Notley that was essentially a warning: don’t be me.

“Keeping spending on operations (health care and education in particular) in check has been the greatest challenge for social democratic governments around the world,” Rae wrote. “From the Labour government in the U.K. in the seventies, to the travails of François Hollande in France, the examples are legion. It ain’t easy.” The heavy sigh is almost audible.

“Government can’t defy gravity,” Rae added, taking what unreconstructed socialists would now call a “pro-austerity” position. “There’s a limit to what any government, of any stripe, can borrow, tax and spend.… The laws of economics are not exactly like the laws of physics, but reality has a way of rushing in.”

When it comes to Rachel Notley and the New Democratic Party, the truth is that Alberta, nauseated by the banana-republican habits of its PC caste, took a conscious gamble. Notley put forward an economic platform with a minimum of utopianism, and upheld the icons of relatively successful, fiscally austere prairie New Democrats: Roy Romanow, Gary Doer.

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