Quotulatiousness

September 3, 2012

The great maple syrup heist must have been an inside job

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Food — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:02

The first time I heard about Quebec’s strategic maple syrup reserve was when someone made off with a quarter of the province’s sweet, sticky liquid:

On Friday, news broke that thieves had stolen $30 million dollars worth of Quebec’s strategic maple syrup reserves. Much as the United States keeps a stock of extra oil buried in underground salt caverns to use in case of a geopolitical emergency, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers has been managing warehouses full of surplus sweetener since 2000. The crooks seem to have made off with more than a quarter of the province’s backup supply.

[. . .]

But harvesting maple is a fickle business, and that makes expanding the industry tricky. The trees need cold nights and mildly warm days to yield sap, meaning production can vary greatly year to year based on the weather. That’s a potential problem for the big syrup buyers, whether they’re bottlers or large food companies that make cookies or cereal. Quaker can’t pour a bunch of time and money into developing a maple-and-brown-sugar-flavored version of Life, only to find out it won’t be able to get enough of its ingredients, or that they’ll have to pay through the nose for each liter of syrup.

H/T to Nicholas Packwood for the link.

September 2, 2012

Proposed federal riding boundary changes

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:36

The proposed new federal riding boundaries are now available to view here. Here’s a comparison of my current riding (Whitby-Oshawa) and the proposed new riding (results if the last election had been held using the new boundaries:

Of course, the most important information is the vast decrease in Libertarian voters in the proposed new riding (down to 0.05% from a majestic 0.31% in the existing riding).

Institutionalizing income inequality

Filed under: Business, Cancon, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:07

At the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative blog, Frances Woolley explains how a couple of data points will work to “bake in” income inequality:

If these are the rules used to determine wages, income inequality will prevail.

It’s impossible for all firms to pay their CEOs above the median salary — by definition, half of executives must be paid below the median. If the majority of firms adopt a compensation policy like the Bell Canada Enterprises one quoted above, CEO salaries will increase inexorably.

At the same time, allowing firms to bring in temporary workers at less than the prevailing market wage prevents the price of labour from being bid up in response to labour shortages, dampening salary growth for workers at the lower wage end of the labour market.

Inequality rules.

September 1, 2012

Celebrities as honorary colonels

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Military — Nicholas @ 00:01

I had not heard about this little innovation in the long-established practice of appointing honorary colonels, lieutenant colonels, and captains:

Typically, honorary lieutenant colonels or colonels for the Army, RCAF honorary colonels, and honorary captains for the Navy, were ceremonial titles primarily handed out to retired Canadian military officers to foster “esprit de corps” within the unit, according to Royal Canadian Navy Captain Michel Charron, director of senior appointments for the Forces. But over the past decade, the selection criteria for the honorary appointments’ “gene pool” was expanded to include non-retired military folks from the worlds of academia, business, politics (excluding Members of Parliament), and arts and entertainment. “One of our objectives is to increase the connection to the communities in which the units are located,” explained Capt. Charron. “By their presence and name, these distinguished Canadians provide a public profile — and a public face — for the unit.” An honorary officer nomination begins at the unit or squadron level, and must be approved by regional command and national headquarters. The recommendation is sent to the Defence Minister, who officially makes the appointment. “The whole idea we have is that if we can make people a little more aware of what the Air Force is involved in, maybe they’ll take more interest overall in our operations,” said retired Col. Dave Peart, who spent 39 years with the RCAF and now manages the program.

[. . .]

Appointed for a renewable three-year term, honorary officers don’t get paid, but their expenses — such as travel to a military base — are covered by the Forces. They’re expected to help their unit organize and participate in parades, change-of-command ceremonies, mess dinners and charitable activities, such as through the CF’s Military Family Resource Centres’ programs. In June, marketing entrepreneur Arlene Dickinson, of CBC Television’s Dragons’ Den fame, became an honorary captain for the Royal Canadian Navy. A month earlier, Man in Motion Rick Hansen was made an honorary colonel of the Forces’ Joint Personnel Support Unit, which provides services to serving and retired ill and injured military personnel. Comedian Rick Mercer, rock star Tom Cochrane, country music singer George Canyon, Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin, and CBC Hockey Night in Canada sportscaster Ron MacLean have also served as honorary colonels with the RCAF.

August 31, 2012

Innovative ways to use huge surplus of beetle-blighted lumber

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:07

British Columbia has a problem with their trees: too many of them are dead due to a massive increase in the population of the mountain pine beetle. The province is searching for ways to cope with the lumber from all the beetle-killed trees:

When life hands you lemons, goes the old saw, make lemonade. But what if life should hand you 18m hectares (44m acres) of dead trees? That is the problem faced by the province of British Columbia in Canada, which could lose over half its pine trees to the depredations of the fearsome mountain pine beetle. The beetle, no bigger than a grain of rice, is native to the forests of Western North America, where it kills trees by releasing a blue stain fungus that prevents the flow of water and nutrients. While the insect was historically kept in check by spells of cold weather, years of mild winters have unleashed an outbreak whose spread and severity is unlike anything seen previously.

As a result, the province is peppered with billions of dead, grey trees. If they are simply left standing, they will eventually either decay or burn in forest fires. In either case, they will release the carbon dioxide they stored while growing, swelling Canada’s total carbon footprint from 2000 to 2020 by 2%.

[. . .]

Canadian researchers have discovered other uses for BKP. Sorin Pasca, a graduate student at the University of Northern British Columbia, found that rain and snow conveniently wash out sugars and other organic compounds from dead pine trees. By grinding up the dry BKP and adding it to normal cement, he created a hybrid material that is waterproof, fire-resistant and pourable like concrete but that can be worked, cut and nailed or drilled like wood. The material, dubbed Beetlecrete, has already been used to make countertops, benches and planters.

Even more esoteric uses for BKP are on the table. Nanocrystalline cellulose, made up of microscopic needle-like fibres, is a lightweight, ultra-rigid material that can be extracted from wood pulp. Currently used to improve the durability of paints and varnishes, nanocrystalline cellulose promises strong, iridescent films that may find uses in industries ranging from optical computing to cosmetics. And, as a last resort, dead and fallen pine trees can feed British Columbia’s 800MW of bio-mass power plants, which burn pellets of BKP and other waste wood to generate electricity.

The search for the burial place of Richard III

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:40

Elizabeth sent me another link on the ongoing archaeological search for the burial place of King Richard III:

A high-profile search for the gravesite of the 15th-century monarch King Richard III — begun Saturday beneath a parking lot in the English city of Leicester — has a remarkable connection to a Canadian family whose members hold the genetic key to solving one of British history’s most enduring mysteries: Where is Richard III’s body?

The London, Ont.-based Ibsen family, recently proven to be descended from King Richard’s maternal line, has provided DNA samples aimed at confirming the regal identity of any human remains found during the unprecedented dig, which continues this week at the former site of a medieval church where — 527 years ago — the violently overthrown monarch was buried.

The University of Leicester-led archeological project was launched after the discovery that the maternal bloodline of the last Plantagenet king — killed in 1485 in the climactic battle of the War of the Roses — survived into the 21st century through Joy Ibsen, a British-born woman who immigrated to Canada after the Second World War and raised a family in southwestern Ontario.

If nothing else, the media coverage of this dig may generate lots of new members for the Richard III Society (Canadian branch, American branch).

The Northlander “was like northern Ontario on wheels”

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Railways — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:06

Chris Selley remembers Ontario Northland’s The Northlander, which the Ontario government will be phasing out next month:

Long-distance rail travel for real folks, as opposed to wealthy tourists, took another sad hit recently with the announced cancellation of the Northlander — the Ontario Northland Railway’s leisurely 11-hour putter from Toronto’s Union Station to Cochrane, Ont., whence the more legendary Polar Bear Express will still take you to Moosonee, on James Bay.

It’s not sad in any commercial sense: The provincial government claims each ticket sold was subsidized to the tune of $400 (though other mathematical interpretations are available). And it’s not sad because senior citizens will now be crammed on to buses to go to their far-flung medical appointments. That’s unfortunate, no question: Trains are fundamentally more civilized than buses. But many communities the size of those served by the Northlander don’t even have buses anymore. This is the age we live in.

I find it sad, firstly, because I have fond childhood memories of that trip. There used to be a train that ran past Cochrane, all the way to Kapuskasing, where we had family friends, and it used to run overnight. There was something wonderfully odd about getting ready for bed while trundling up the Don Valley. In the winter, the train was like a strange, slow teleportation to a different planet: You went to sleep in Toronto’s grey-brown approximation of the season and awoke, after a night of groggily perceived stopping and starting, horn blasts and various crashes and bangs, to a blinding white, empty snowscape. Stumbling to the dining car — well, the box-of-cereal-and-milk car — you would find the spaces between the cars encased in snow and ice, like the inside of an old freezer.

It wasn’t fast, or slick. It was a bit ramshackle. But it was folksy. It was like northern Ontario on wheels.

The earlier post on the cancellation.

August 30, 2012

General A.G.L. McNaughton and the First Canadian Army

Filed under: Books, Cancon, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:21

Randall Wakelam reviews a new biography of Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton, the first commander of Canada’s major field formation in World War 2:

Lieutenant-General A.G.L. ‘Andy’ McNaughton was one of the key staff gunners in the Canadian Corps in the Great War and went on to be Chief of the General Staff in Ottawa from 1930 to 1935. From 1935 to 1939 he established and led the National Research Council. He was recalled to active service in 1939 and took 1st Canadian Division overseas. Once there he would spend four years building the Canadian field force first to corps and then army level. Relieved of army command in late 1943, he was for a short while Minister of National Defence and in the postwar years continued to serve Canada as the Canadian co-chair of the Canada-US Permanent Joint Board on Defence. Not a bad record of public service, but he is most remembered for his apparent failures as general officer commanding-in-chief (GOC-in-C), First Canadian Army.

[. . .]

Previous portraits show McNaughton to be a general who argued vehemently against breaking up his force for errant missions and, who at the same time, was a failure in field exercises. He has also been seen as an inflexible man who could not get on with his military or political seniors. Historians of no less repute than C.P. Stacey, Jack English and Jack Granatstein have created that portrait for Andy.

[. . .]

Rickard has gone well beyond what we have to now generally accepted as the tragic character that was Andy McNaughton. He has drawn from an impressive range or primary sources in building a case for, if not accepting McNaughton as a viable, but unlucky commander, then one whose flaws are now better understood in comparison of those of his peers. While not all will agree with Rickard’s assessment of McNaughton it could be argued that such disagreement is born in large part because of the complex nature of high command and the management of armies and national forces in coalition warfare – what might be termed Clausewitzian fog and friction both on the battlefield and in the meeting rooms, and with more than a pinch of ambiguity added when it comes to strategic-level discussions and decisions. Such has been the case recently for Canadian politicians and commanders in Afghanistan and the Mediterranean; both they and students of Canadian history will enjoy John Rickard’s fresh and refreshing study of Andy.

August 23, 2012

Quebec election: why is Pauline Marois getting a free pass for xenophobia?

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:09

Jonathan Kay wonders why the English language media in the “rest of Canada” are being so careful to avoid calling out PQ leader Pauline Marois for far greater sins than any Alberta politician committed during the recent Alberta election:

Given the close scrutiny that surrounded the recent Alberta election, it is somewhat surprising that more attention is not being paid to the genuinely alarming things coming out of the mouth of Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois.

During the Alberta campaign, every gaffe committed by a member of the right-wing Wildrose Party became a national news item. The Toronto media, in particular, lapped it up — because it played to our outdated stereotype of Alberta as a land of rural hicks. Yet nothing that was said in the Alberta campaign can compare to the declarations of Ms. Marois, who has easily established herself as the most xenophobic major-party leader in all of Canada.

So why has there been comparatively little uproar over Ms. Marois? It is as if Canadians in the rest of the country have become so accustomed to watching Quebec nationalists bottom-feed for votes that we no longer are shocked by it. But Quebec is, after all, part of Canada. And Ms. Marois might become the province’s next premier on Sept. 4. Surely, it is worth rousing ourselves to pay attention to the fact that this woman is proposing policies that are unconstitutional and even bigoted.

August 22, 2012

Nash the (gay, conservative) Slash

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:16

I’ve always liked the music of Nash the Slash, but I didn’t know much about him — but that’s not uncommon when the artist performs his music while wrapped in bandages so you can’t see his face. Apparently he’s that rarest of creatures: a gay Canadian conservative:

The music industry has been dominated by left-leaning causes since the days of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, not to mention the countless artists who’ve been influenced by Bob Dylan and Neil Young. In Canada, rock stars came out in droves for the funeral of NDP leader Jack Layton, but it’s hard to find one musician who would openly admit to supporting Stephen Harper. While country star Paul Brandt performed at the 2008 Conservative convention and Nova Scotia’s The Trews have a song called Highway of Heroes that’s been adopted by the Tories, neither would agree to an interview about their political views.

“I feel that conservatives are pragmatic and more fiscally responsible [than the Liberals],” says Nash the Slash, the late-’70s-era experimental Canadian artist who has recorded with Neil Young’s famed producer, Daniel Lanois. “I think the left is more carved into stone in some of their intractability and I may get flack for that, but I don’t care. You never see conservatives out there parading at the G20 summit — we tend to be less demonstrative.”

Politically, Nash the Slash’s career tells an interesting story, as he’s also an outspoken gay musician who lives in Leslieville (a Toronto neighbourhood often painted as left-leaning) and used to hoist the occasional beer with Layton. Still, the musician voted for the conservative-minded Rob Ford over gay liberal candidate George Smitherman in Toronto’s 2010 mayoral election, and isn’t afraid to flaunt his right-wing leanings.

“I voted for Rob Ford because I believe in fiscal responsibility and you can call him a bumbling fool, but guess what? We’re not going to have any money to support the gay Pride parade unless we get our books straight,” he says. “If we don’t conserve our money, eventually, we’re all going to turn into Greece.”

It’s not surprising that outspoken right-wing rockers such as Nash the Slash are hard to find, though. Even when conservative politicians reach out to the music world, they tend to find their hands slapped back.

Wikipedia entry for Nash the Slash.

Since 1979 Nash has always performed with surgical bandages covering his face. “During a gig at The Edge in the late ’70s to raise awareness of the threat from the Three Mile Island disaster, he walked on stage wearing bandages dipped in phosphorus paint and exclaimed: “look, this is what happens to you”. The bandages became his trademark.” Prior to 1979, Nash performed three times on TV Ontario’s Nightmusic Concert, first as a solo artist (a live broadcast which was never re-aired), then with FM (Nash and Cameron Hawkins), then again as a solo artist. In all of these appearances Nash wore his typical black tuxedo, top hat, and dark sunglasses, but wore no bandages.

Born Jeff Plewman (as given in copyright depositions at the Library of Congress), he has attempted to keep his true identity the subject of some speculation. In a 1981 interview with the UK magazine Smash Hits, Nash’s response to a question about his real name was “Nashville Thebodiah Slasher”. By never officially confirming or denying his name, some fans came to believe Nash to be an alter ego of Ben Mink, who replaced him as FM’s violinist in 1978. This is a common misconception but he has been photographed onstage with Ben Mink.

QotD: Orwell on the Dieppe raid

Filed under: Cancon, France, Germany, History, Military, Quotations, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:12

D[avid] A[stor] very damping about the Dieppe raid, which he saw at more or less close quarters and which he says was an almost complete failure except for the very heavy destruction of German fighter planes, which was not part of the plan. He says that the affair was definitely misrepresented in the press and is now being misrepresented in the reports to the P.M., and that the main facts were: – Something over 5000 men were engaged, of whom at least 2000 were killed or prisoners. It was not intended to stay longer on shore than was actually done (ie. till about 4pm), but the idea was to destroy all the defences of Dieppe, and the attempt to do this was an utter failure. In fact only comparatively trivial damage was done, a few batteries of guns knocked out etc., and only one of the three main parties really made its objective. The others did not get far and many were massacred on the beach by artillery fire. The defences were formidable and would have been difficult to deal with even if there had been artillery support, as the guns were sunk in the face of the cliffs or under enormous concrete coverings. More tank-landing craft were sunk then got ashore. About 20 or 30 tanks were landed but none got off again. The newspaper photos which showed tanks apparently being brought back to England were intentionally misleading. The general impression was that the Germans knew of the raid beforehand. Almost as soon as it was begun they had a man broadcasting a spurious “eye-witness” account from somewhere further up the coast, and another man broadcasting false orders in English. On the other hand the Germans were evidently surprised by the strength of the air support. Whereas normally they have kept their fighters on the ground so as to conserve their strength, they sent them into the air as soon as they heard that tanks were landing, and lost a number of planes variously estimated, but considered by some RAF officers to be as high as 270. Owing to the British strength in the air the destroyers were able to lie outside Dieppe all day. One was sunk, by this was by a shore battery. When a request came to attack some objective on shore, the destroyers formed in line and raced inshore firing their guns while the fighter planes supported them overhead.

George Orwell, diary entry for August 22, 1942.

August 21, 2012

Farewell to The Northlander

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:00

The economics of long-distance passenger rail service is brutal: this announcement is not really a surprise, but it is disappointing anyway.

If a train stops running through the hinterland, does anybody hear?

The Ontario government has just announced the end of the line for the Northlander. The Ontario Northland train that runs between Toronto and Cochrane, Ontario, will cease service at the end of September.

What’s the word for that? Disappointing doesn’t cut it. Short-sighted is accurate, but insufficient. Regrettable is an understatement, too.

You’d think as a nation once united by the railway, we would have coined a term to cover the loss, the heartache, the sense of isolation, betrayal and rejection that comes from losing a railway line.

The only expression that comes close is “they’ve killed another train.”

Time and time again, we’ve seen passenger service reduced to little more than a quaint memory in many parts of the country.

Despite the historical appeal, long distance passenger rail loses money just about everywhere: government subsidies have been necessary for decades to keep the trains running. Political jockeying may keep a line open for a longer period, but nothing is going to change the facts. Passenger trains can be competitive for short-to-medium distances, but quickly lose out in efficiency (and potential profits) to air service over medium-to-long distances. Every time someone rides a VIA or Ontario Northland passenger train, the taxpayer is picking up part of the tab (and the longer the distance being travelled, the greater the required subsidy from the government).

Garnet Rogers explains what happens next:

The last train rolled out of town today;
You might have seen it on the news.
We gathered round the engine yard
To say our good-byes to the crews.
Well the cheering stopped, the laughter died
It dwindled down the tracks
“That’s that”, I heard someone say,
“We’ve fallen through the cracks.”

August 17, 2012

The police war on photographers and videographers: the Canadian front

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:44

Karen Selick in the National Post confirming that Canadian police are also under the impression that their work cannot legally be photographed:

What have cops got against cameras these days? Increasingly, people are getting arrested, charged or even assaulted by police officers, merely for attempting to take photos or videos of officers at work. Often, police simply command people to stop photographing. Scared into thinking they must be breaking some law, citizens comply.

When Polish visitor Robert Dziekanski died after being tasered at the Vancouver airport in 2007, police seized the now famous video made by witness Paul Pritchard, who had to hire a lawyer and threaten court proceedings to get it back.

[. . .]

There is no law in Canada that prohibits people from openly photographing police. Section 129 of the Criminal Code prohibits “wilfully obstructing” police in the execution of their duty, but it is hard to imagine how standing by peacefully and videotaping as police searched the premises and piled up items for seizure could be considered obstructing. After all, the police themselves were videotaping on Ms. Jones’ premises — but selectively. They probably didn’t capture themselves ordering her friend to refrain from taking the pictures she was legally entitled to take.

That same day, three other search warrants were executed at the homes of other individuals the CFIA suspects of conspiring with Ms. Jones to save her healthy sheep. At Michael Schmidt’s residence, all cell phones were immediately confiscated. When a visitor from outside arrived with his cell phone, Schmidt’s wife borrowed it and took photos of police inside her home. Officers seized the phone even though it was clearly outside the scope of the warrant. They returned it three hours later, with the photos erased. When the victim of this apparently illegal seizure objected, police responded, “We can do whatever we want.” But of course, that arrogant response was not permitted to be recorded.

[. . .]

Police must be made to understand that being on duty or executing a search warrant does not transform an officer into a petty dictator with carte blanche to issue arbitrary orders to everyone in sight. Police cannot do “whatever they want.” Citizens have the right to hold them accountable for their actions. Personal cameras are important tools in implementing that right. Bullying people out of using them must cease.

August 16, 2012

Kheiriddin: Quebec xenophobia on display in election campaign

Filed under: Cancon, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:56

In her National Post column, Tasha Kheiriddin discusses the topic that most of the Canadian media is being ultra-careful about:

Racist or not? When it comes to the Quebec election campaign, remarks made this week by a variety of politicians provided considerable fodder for debate, and considerable distraction from the real issues — health, taxes and corruption — that voters actually want their elected officials to talk about.

First, Coalition Avenir Québec leader François Legault lambasted young Quebecers for being interested in living “the good life,” unlike children in Asia whose parents all want them to become engineers, and have to stop them from studying lest they make themselves sick. When he was attacked for this remarks, he retorted that the fault lies with Quebec parents, and that they should review the values they are transmitting to their children.

[. . .]

His remarks pale in comparison, however, to the xenophobic tone of those made by Parti Québécois ledaer Pauline Marois, and worse yet, the mayor of Saguenay, Jean Tremblay.

On Tuesday, Ms. Marois unveiled her party’s desire to implement a “Secular Charter” which would ban the wearing of any religious symbols by government employees. With, as my colleague Chris Selley tartly notes on these pages, one notable exception: Symbols of Christian faith, such as the cross which hangs over the Speakers’ Chair in the National Assembly. In other words, a crucifix necklace, good: hijabs and yarmulkes, bad.

[. . .]

Then on Wednesday, Mr. Tremblay took xenophobia one step further, when he launched a tirade against Djemila Benhabib, the Parti Québécois candidate in Trois Rivières. On a popular radio show, Mr. Tremblay let loose: “I am shocked that we, the softies, the French Canadians, will be told how to behave, how to respect our culture by a person who comes from Algeria, and we can’t even pronounce her name.”

Update: Convenient timing suspects Don Macpherson.

https://twitter.com/MacphersonGaz/statuses/236059349817122816

August 15, 2012

Canadian liberty, 1776-2012

Filed under: Cancon, History, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:32

F.H. Buckley has an interesting article in the National Post, comparing the American and Canadian “flavours” of liberty from the American Revolution down to today:

The Fathers of Confederation had seen the American constitution close up and didn’t want any part of it. They didn’t foresee just how we’d turn out. Overall, however, our good fortune would not have surprised them, for they knew that they were founding a free country.

On reading the Confederation debates, one is struck by how the Fathers insisted that we had real liberty in Canada, more so even than Americans. That comes as a bit of a shock, as we had thought that Americans had property rights in liberty. They owned it, and on occasion were kind enough to try to export it to lesser countries, as they did 200 years ago in the War of 1812 (where they came in a very strong second).

[. . .]

When McGee and the other Fathers looked south, they saw a country with more of Constant’s liberty of the ancients but less of the liberty of the moderns. Moreover, of the former, the right of self-government had been corrupted by political machines and trivialized by elections for dogcatchers. The high ideals of the American Founders had been forgotten, and their republican virtue was now, in the era of Boss Tweed and Jay Gould, little more than American braggadocio. As for the liberty of the moderns, there was that little matter of slavery and its aftermath. True, Americans could express themselves through lynch-parties, but that was the kind of liberty the Canadians did not want.

Many of the differences between the two countries remain, but Canadians no longer have more of the liberty of the moderns than Americans. In both countries, benign neglect has been replaced by the bureaucrat’s officious nudges, giving us ugly light bulbs, toilets that don’t flush and idiotic playground rules. Could one have predicted this 25 years ago? I think not. Back then I had legal scholar Cass Sunstein over for dinner. Until a few days ago he was Obama’s regulatory czar, and over dinner in 1987 he predicted how the regulatory state would expand, in the name of risk reduction. “Americans won’t stand for this,” my wife told him. They prize their freedom too much. “Ah, but we’ll change their preferences,” he replied. And he was right.

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