H/T to Roger Henry, who says “A well coordinated team, but, Halifax, Canada?? Where’s the snow?”.
November 7, 2010
November 6, 2010
Creating a more privileged class of commenter
I don’t normally read comment threads at the Globe and Mail website (actually, I rarely get too far in comment threads anywhere . . . too many comments, too little time), so the creation of Globe Catalysts was news to me earlier today. Elizabeth mentioned that certain prolific commenters at the Globe website had been given privileges which makes their individual comments much more visible and (apparently) keeps catalyst comments near the top of the thread.
It must have appeared to Globe management that the comment threads were getting too unruly, so they’ve appointed class monitors or “trustys” to keep the unwashed masses in line.
It’s nice that they chose a name for these folks that allows the group of them to be referred to as “the Cattle List”.
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The people in the bubble
Margaret Wente has a little test for you to determine if you’re in the “elite”:
Before we venture further into this battle zone, you can calculate your elite status by taking this patented Elite-O-Meter test. See how you rate!
Your degree is from:
An American Ivy League university or Stanford (Score: +40)
Queen’s, McGill, the University of Toronto, Western or UBC (+20)
The University of Ottawa or other (-20)Your children’s degrees are from:
An American Ivy League university, etc. (+30)
Queen’s, etc. (+10)
The University of Ottawa or other (-20)What do these initials stand for?
NPR (+10 if you know)
MMA (-20 if you know)(For Torontonians)
None of your friends voted for Rob Ford (+20)
One of your friends voted for Rob Ford (0)
You voted for Rob Ford (-20)For a good time, you prefer
Luminato (+20)
A tailgate party in Buffalo (-20)Who is Carol Off? (+20)
Who is Jimmie Johnson (not the football coach)? (-40)
To get some exercise, you prefer
Yoga and Pilates (+10)
Hunting and fishing (-20)Have you ever had a housekeeper or nanny? (+10)
Have you ever been a housekeeper or nanny? (-20)
Have you ever had a job that made your feet tired by the end of the day? (Teaching, or jobs during high school and university, don’t count.) (-40)
As an adult, have you ever lived in a small town for at least a year? (University towns don’t count.) (-20)
Have you ever read a book by Michael Ignatieff? (+50)
Have you ever read a book by Tim LaHaye? (-20)
Your idea of good TV is
The Sopranos or Mad Men (+20)
Oprah or The Price is Right (-20)Needless to say, the higher you scored, the more Elite you are. If you are on the plus side of the Elite-O-Meter, there’s a good chance you belong to Richard Florida’s Creative Class. You are probably (or soon will be) in the top 10 per cent of income earners, and you are probably married to someone a great deal like yourself. Congratulations! You are the product of the modern meritocracy. Although your family may have come from humble origins, you have joined the ruling class — the one that runs our major institutions, including governments, the law and the media.
For the record, I scored -70. That confirms what I suspected: I’m not “elite” by downtown Toronto standards.
November 5, 2010
His lawyer said “Vakhtang has been under a great deal of stress”
One sometimes has sympathy for police officers who may harbour suspicions, but are unable to pursue them for a lack of evidence. When the disappearance of Mariam Makhniashvili came to public attention, I wondered if her father might have been the perpetrator (I’m sure the police had similar thoughts), but there was no reported evidence to support that notion.
Since then, Vakhtang Makhniashvili has been involved in a series of incidents that can only reinforce any suspicions:
Trouble seems to be following Vakhtang: his daughter disappeared in September 2009, he was arrested in May after allegedly stabbing his neighbour and in December 2008, was charged with lewd conduct in Los Angeles related to an alleged obscene incident in front of a daycare centre, but was was later acquitted.
That’s why yesterday’s incident seems, in retrospect, almost inevitable:
[Vakhtang Makhniashvili] has also been charged with aggravated assault and fail to comply with recognizance following a double stabbing in the city’s east end on Thursday.
A man and a woman were stabbed inside a home at 10 Greenwood Ave., near Queen Street East.
On Thursday, blood stains could be seen on the front porch and a trail of blood was splattered on the sidewalk.
Police told 680News Vakhtang was in the couple’s home where a verbal argument took place, and that ended with the pair being stabbed multiple times.
Yes, yes, presumption of innocence, etc. But it’s even harder to believe after all of this that he didn’t have something to do with the Mariam Makhniashvili case, isn’t it?
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November 4, 2010
Globe editorial: “Mr. Clement has much to explain”
I keep wondering if there are any actual conservatives left in Stephen Harper’s merry band of economic nationalists:
Tony Clement, the federal Minister of Industry, has much to explain after his laconic rejection of BHP Billiton Ltd.’s application for permission to proceed with its offer to buy Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc.
Canadians and investors around the world — not least Potash Corp.’s own shareholders — are entitled to learn what Mr. Clement thinks is the meaning of “net benefit” to Canada, in the words of the Investment Canada Act. Evidently, in his and his colleagues’ minds, free markets and the free flow of investment are not sufficient.
Canada, as an exporting nation, has far more to lose by kicking off this kind of protectionist move than any imaginable gains. We might as well write off any economic growth from exports if this is the new modus operandi of the federal government.
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October 29, 2010
Why some vintage dates matter more than others
If you’re not a wine fan, you may wonder why wine snobs pay so much attention to vintage dates. If you drink the occasional bottle of “Raunchy ‘Roo Red” or “Zesty Zebra Shiraz”, the vintage dates matter very little: by the name, you’d guess they’d be from Australia or South Africa, both hot climate wine countries. Vintage dates are much less important for hot climate wines: the variation from year to year is relatively small. As Michael Pinkus points out, however, it matters a great deal for cool climate wine countries:
Many wine drinkers never notice the vintage date on the wine they are drinking — they just blindly go off buying wine. I talk to many people and very few know what year they’re drinking, just the producer. In a wine region like Ontario that’s a odd way to be drinking your wine. We’re a cool climate region after all and if you don’t understand the difference between a good vintage wine a mediocre vintage wine you could be stuck with a lot of 2003s in your cellar for 10 years or more. The key is to know their drink-ability (2003) or conversely, know how long you should be holding onto wines like [these], a few extra years of aging will give these wines time to mature and integrate, drink them too early and you’ll miss out on all the fun.
In a cool climate region (Ontario, Bordeaux, New Zealand) Vintage date means more than in a hot climate region (Australia, Argentina, Chile) — there temps are always beautiful (read: warm and sunny) and vintage variation plays little part in the finished wine; while in a cool climate region harvest is a waiting game and in many years prayer is a grape farmers best friend.
Take 2010 for instance, this year has the likelihood and pedigree to be even better than the much lauded 2007. What makes 2010 better? Glad you asked. While 2007 had lots of heat and little rain (which grapes love), 2010 has been a longer growing season, with lots of heat and rain has come at the “appropriate” times. If you’ll recall our winter was very mild and bud break occured in April, at that time the prayer for farmers was the ‘Psalm of No Frost’. A longer growing season with lots of heat means good grapes — but that does not always apply to all grapes, but that’s really a discussion for another time.
Most determine a good season by how well the red grapes are going to be — in a cool region white grapes grow well year-after-year — but many of the Bordeaux red grapes struggle (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc). 2007 was a great year for the usual Bordeaux varietals as well as others reds that don’t often ripen fully under the Ontario skies.
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Would KFC’s Double Down have been a hit without the Food Police panic?
Lorne Gunter salutes KFC and their surprise hit menu item:
Way to go KFC! Your Double Down sandwich has the health police in a tizzy. Those preachy, prancing, eat-your-peas pokenoses can’t decide whether to tax you, shield their children’s eyes from you or send you to re-education camp — or perhaps all three at once.
I’m am happy to hear your new bun-less concoction is your most successful new-product launch in company history. May the marketing mastermind who came up with the Double-D get an unhealthy bonus.
To be honest, I can’t even imagine trying one — two deep-fried chicken breasts wrapped around two strips of bacon, two slices of processed cheese and some sauce doesn’t appeal to me — except maybe as a dare; a Double Down Dare. Still, I am genuinely pleased that you have had the chicken balls to come out with an item that thumbs its nose so completely at conventional public-health wisdom.
I’ll never eat one myself, but I cheer on the spirit of those who tell the Nanny State’s food police where to go.
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October 28, 2010
It’s “like asking an alcoholic to run a distillery”
The dissent on the announced purchase of F-35 fighter jets continues to gain traction:
In an interview on CBC’s Power and Politics last night, Industry Minister Tony Clement admitted we are buying the F-35s because the military wants them. “It is the best plane on the market. I will say on your program, I’m not the expert. The military are the experts. Why don’t the Liberals take the word of the Canadian military on that?” he asked.
Let me count the ways. A brief read of the A-G’s report on the purchase of military helicopters suggests a host of reasons why allowing the Department of National Defence to dictate procurement is like asking an alcoholic to run a distillery.
Sheila Fraser’s report concluded that National Defence knew, but did not tell the politicians, that the helicopter it wanted was not an “off-the-shelf “ model, with a relatively low risk of cost and time overruns.
In the event, the total cost for the 15 Chinook heavy lift helicopters more than doubled to $4.9-billion from the $2-billion price tag when the project was presented to the Conservative government and approved. Helicopters that were initially scheduled to be delivered last July, now won’t be ready until June 2013 — a state of affairs Ms. Fraser decried as “totally inappropriate”.
I’m not convinced that the F-35 is the aircraft Canada actually needs, and the DND’s track record on equipment purchases combined with the ultra-spendy pricetag on the F-35 make me concerned that they’re going to put themselves in the same state as the British armed forces by over-committing to kit that they (that is, we) can’t afford.
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Help some Canadian bloggers against “lawfare”
Richard Warman is suing several Canadian bloggers (among many, many suits he’s launched), including Kathy Shaidle:
As many of you know, I — along with Ezra Levant and others — are already being sued by former Canadian “Human Rights” Commission employee Richard Warman.
Now my husband Arnie — a.k.a. the blogger BlazingCatFur — is also being sued by Warman, also for criticizing his activities at the CHRC.
Warman is suing for $500,000.
Arnie has already spent $10,000 in legal fees. We’ve put off asking for help for more than a year, but we now are coming to you for assistance.
Among the issues in the latest suit is the claim that merely linking to a “far right website” (in this case, SteynOnline) can be considered actionable.
October 27, 2010
The new broom in Toronto
After a particularly hard-fought election campaign, Chris Selley looks at the opening moves Toronto mayor Rob Ford will be making:
It’s kind of funny to see people who’ve spent the past 10 months trashing Rob Ford now insist he needs to extend olive branches to the progressive community. If I were Rob Ford, and I had an olive branch, I might be tempted to extend it rather violently towards my harshest critics. (Then, in accordance with my new and improved image, I’d take two deep breaths and calm down.)
Clearly Mr. Ford is sticking with his gravy train priorities off the top: departmental efficiencies, contracting out services, cutting councillor budgets and staff. At a media scrum on Tuesday afternoon, his message hadn’t changed, that I could discern, from what it was during the campaign. Basically: Trust me. The money’s there to be saved, and it won’t hurt a bit.
Still, Mayor Ford will have a city to keep happy. And while they received very little notice during the campaign, his platform included several populist, pro-democratic and dirt-cheap measures I’d defy anyone to oppose and that could earn him some grudging praise from disaffected Pantaloons and Smithermanians.
The large turnout and the not-quite-majority of votes cast for Ford should at least quiet the claims that he “doesn’t have a mandate” for a little while. If he can actually deliver on some of his campaign promises to reduce spending and eliminate some of the least useful municipal programs/initiatives, he’ll be a vast improvement over the last mayor. Even if he doesn’t — he only has a single vote on council, so it’s not automatic that he’ll be able to implement his agenda — it should be an interesting term in office.
Kathy Shaidle shows why Rob Ford had “hidden” strength in the campaign that the media couldn’t account for:
What is Rob Ford most famous for?
No, not that he looks exactly like everybody’s drunk, abusive stepfather. No, not the “gravy train” line.
Rob Ford is “the guy who returns every call.”
That was always Ford’s claim to fame: that even if you didn’t [live] in his ward, he returned your call. If you were wrapped up in red tape and called Rob Ford, an hour or maybe a day later, the tape got snipped. The Wheeltrans showed up at your elderly mother’s door. That stupid problem you’d been screaming at bureaucrats about got taken care of.
Everyone in Toronto knows a Rob Ford story like that.
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October 26, 2010
Did we just witness the start of “Tea Party Ontario”?
Steve Paikin looks at the unexpected toppling of incumbent mayors across Ontario yesterday:
Did we just have our own “tea party” Ontario?
All over the province, incumbents were feeling the wrath of the electorate.
In the capital city, Rob Ford cruised to victory, besting George Smitherman by more than 90,000 votes. His margin of victory was bigger than David Miller’s when he “swept” into office with his broom seven years ago.
But it wasn’t only Toronto. Incumbent mayors lost in Hamilton, Ottawa, Burlington, Vaughan, London, Thunder Bay, and Sudbury.
In Mississauga, where Hazel McCallion is accustomed to winning with more than 90% of the vote, she only won re-election with 76%.
[. . .]
A few weeks ago, none of these results was seen as obvious.
[. . .]
The conventional wisdom in local politics is that name recognition counts for so much. The power of incumbency is fantastic.
Not last night. If anything, the opposite was true. If you were in, you had a target on you. And precious few escaped it, including many incumbent city councillors in Toronto.
A stunning night for upsets. A big night for turnout (more than 50% in Toronto…twice the normal turnout rate).
An Ontario Tea Party would be a good idea . . .
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Toronto’s elite appalled: the barbarians have stormed City Hall
I guess a lot of people were misleading the pollsters, as what looked like a dead heat only a few days before the election turned into a 12 point lead, just missing an actual majority for Rob Ford:
Right-wing juggernaut Rob Ford will take the top job in Canada’s most populous city, defeating former deputy premier George Smitherman in a bitter, 10-month race to become Toronto’s next mayor.
With 99 per cent of Toronto polls reporting Monday night, Ford took 47 per cent of the vote, compared to Smitherman’s 35 per cent and deputy mayor Joe Pantalone’s 12 per cent.
Smitherman was considered an early favourite to win, but couldn’t compete against Ford, a scrappy city councillor who tapped into a potent well of voter fury with his promises to cut taxes and kill big spending at city hall.
“This victory is a clear call from the taxpayers, enough is enough,” Ford told cheering supporters.
“The party with taxpayers’ money is over. We will respect the taxpayers again, and yes ladies and gentlemen we will stop the gravy train once and for all.”
The polarizing Toronto race was marred by ugly incidents, including homophobic ads targeting the openly gay Smitherman, and a newspaper article — later pulled from the Globe and Mail website — that took a shot at Ford’s weight.
His win is likely to send shockwaves all the way to Premier Dalton McGuinty’s office. Many experts have predicted that a Ford victory could herald a Conservative sweep in next fall’s Ontario election.
Ford is perhaps the least likely candidate to win in Toronto for decades, and is most certainly not the kind of mayor most progressives expected to see. He’s not particularly polished or smooth-talking or dignified, and has had a series of mis-steps that the media (and Toronto’s Liberal elite) expected to keep him from being more than a slight bump in the smooth road to Smitherman’s coronation. I expect this election result will be portrayed in the media, at least in the short term, as the suburbs “sticking it” to downtown (even though some polls showed Ford’s support to be nearly as strong in downtown wards as in the benighted suburbs).
Update: Chris Selley thinks that this is a wake-up call for politicians across the province:
One can only imagine the horror in certain quarters. Uncouth, uncultured, suburban, journalist-chasing, drunk driving, marijuana-possessing Air Canada Centre ejectee and lone wolf former city councillor Rob Ford is mayor-elect of Toronto — and not just by a little. Mayor David Miller congratulated him last night and so should everyone else. It sure won’t help not to.
Whatever happens over the next four years, this election sent a hugely important message to Canadian politicians: Ignore voter anger at your peril. If you think voters shouldn’t be angry, make your case early and sincerely. Don’t just blame a senior level of government for your problems.
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Cost overruns are typical, but this is excessive
Canada’s parliament buildings have been sporadically under repair since 1992. The original estimate for all required work was $460 million. It has, of course, gone well past that budget:
The cost of renovating Parliament Hill is expected to hit $5 billion by the time the 25-year project wraps up, CBC reported Monday.
According to documents released by the Department of Public Works, the repairs to almost every building on Parliament Hill, originally pegged to be $460 million in 1992, will have ballooned to more than 10 times that amount upon completion.
Renovations started on the aging buildings in 1992, when builders began renewing Parliament’s West Block. The project was shelved in 1998, then restarted in 2005, with an estimated budget of $769 million. That total has since risen to more than $1 billion, according to CBC.
As Ezra Levant points out, “Burj Dubai, world’s tallest building, only cost $4.1B”.
Update: Ezra also pointed out that the “Bank of China tower in Hong Kong was $1.66B. Taipei 101 was $2B. “.
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October 25, 2010
Voting for the right candidates
I just got back from exercising my right to vote for municipal representation. It was a case of trying to find candidates who didn’t copy one another’s homework (and campaign promises).
In municipal elections in Ontario, party affiliations aren’t shown on the ballot, but given the claims I saw in most of the pamphlets and local newspaper articles, almost all of our local candidates are fully paid-up members of the Green party. I don’t know why our school trustees need to be so concerned with things well outside the municipal level of responsibility, but I’d kinda prefer they concentrated on, y’know, the fricking schools in the region, rather than deforestation in the tropics, CO2 emissions, and banning plastic bags.
I ended up not using all my votes, as I couldn’t find candidates for some of the positions who didn’t seem to want to spend all their time stuffing envelopes for Greenpeace rather than running the town and regional governments.
Oh, and a protip for future candidates, especially if you’re late entering the race: not having a website means I can’t look up your positions on anything, and I’m not going to vote for you just on the basis of you having an interesting name.
In praise of Sir Wilfrid Laurier
One of the few Canadian prime ministers I can admit a genuine fondness for, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, gets a bit of recognition:
Last May in a casual dinner conversation with Canadian libertarians in Vancouver, I named the better presidents and prime ministers, respectively, of the United States and Great Britain. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t name a single Canadian counterpart.
So I asked my dinner friends, “Among Canada’s political leaders, did you ever have a Grover Cleveland or a William Ewert Gladstone, a prime minister who believed in liberty and defended it?”
One name emerged, almost in unison: Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Embarrassed by my ignorance, I had to admit I had never heard of him. Never mind that he’s the guy with the bushy hair on the Canadian five-dollar bill; I just never noticed. Now that I’ve done a little research, I’m a fan.
Laurier’s political resume is impressive: fourth-longest-serving prime minister in Canada’s history (1896–1911, the longest unbroken term of office of all 22 PMs). Forty-five years in the House of Commons, an all-time record. Longest-serving leader of any Canadian political party (almost 32 years). Across Canada to this day, he is widely regarded as one of the country’s greatest statesmen.
It’s not his tenure in government that makes Laurier an admirable figure. It’s what he stood for while he was there. He really meant it when he declared, “Canada is free and freedom is its nationality” and “Nothing will prevent me from continuing my task of preserving at all cost our civil liberty.”
Laurier was the last Liberal leader who actually believed in “classic” liberalism, not the warmed-over socialism of later and current Liberal thought. We could use another Laurier today.
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