Quotulatiousness

January 28, 2010

Have aliens stolen the Prime Minister’s brain?

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:41

Kevin Libin points out just how little today’s Stephen Harper resembles the young Reform Party MP when he first went to Ottawa:

Who’s that Prime Minister in Ottawa preparing to appoint a string of partisan senators tomorrow, and dreaming of converting the G8 from an economic focus to one of promoting health care for mothers and children in the developing world — and what’s he done with Stephen Harper? The man who first came to Ottawa as a Reform MP in 1993 with an agenda to privatize social services, restrict immigration and end Upper Chamber patronage would likely not recognize the Conservative leader of today, and not just because of the greyer hair.

Mr. Harper has come a vast distance in his approach to policy in the four years he’s been running the federal government, rather than sniping at it from inside a regionally focused rump party. “How much of that is the natural evolution, or maturity and wisdom or prudence that comes with age,” says Faron Ellis, a Lethbridge College political scientist and author of a book on the Reform party’s history, as opposed to a “political learning curve,” is hard to say. Whatever the reasons, there’s no question, things look much different in Stephen Harper’s mirror than they did 17 years ago.

January 26, 2010

When politicians get too close to the sharp end, militarily speaking

Filed under: Government, Military, Politics, USA, Weapons — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:42

This is a good example of why it’s a bad idea to allow politicians to get too deeply involved in military acquisition and logistics:

The U.S. Army wants to use more precision “smart” weapons. To that end they have replaced unguided MLRS (227mm) rockets with a GPS guided one. There is now a very popular GPS guided 155mm artillery shell in use. Laser guided Hellfire missiles are widely used by helicopter gunships. But there’s still one unguided “dumb” weapon that the army just can’t seem to get away from; their unguided 70mm (2.75 inch) rockets. Back in 2003, the army planned to begin phasing out these rockets. But, instead, during the last five years, the army has purchased nearly a billion dollars worth of 70mm rockets. Not because they wanted to, but because the politicians from Vermont, where the rocket is manufactured, had enough clout to force the army buy over 100,000 70mm rockets they don’t want, won’t use, and will eventually have to dispose of. That last step will cost more money, unless they can find some foreign country that wants to buy them, cheap.

I guess the plant that produces them is in a district represented by a member of a powerful committee in Washington.

January 21, 2010

Obama’s move to throttle the big banks

Filed under: Economics, Government, Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:18

Megan McArdle takes a first look at the Obama administration’s new initiative to control the big banks:

The administration’s new proposal has two core pieces, both of which are at least somewhat novel. First, banks that have access to the discount window will not be able to trade for their own account. That means no prop trading desk. No owning hedge funds or private equity funds. No investments of any kind to make profits for your shareholders. Financial institutions can make profits by servicing clients, or they can make profits by investing for their own book. But they can’t do both.

Senior administration officials I spoke to made it clear that this would not include market making activity, which the administration views as something you do for your clients. But while that may partially reassure banks, that seems to mean that market makers — i.e. Goldman Sachs — are very definitely included. That impression was reinforced by the way Indeed, if they pass this thing, they should probably call it the Hey Goldman Sachs! You’re Not Going to Be So Profitable Any More Act of 2010.

January 11, 2010

Dystopia, here we come!

Filed under: Environment, Government, Media — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:06

The State of the World 2010 report published by the Worldwatch Institute will find a large audience among the postlapsarian Left:

Ditch the dog; throw away (sorry, recycle) those takeaway menus; bin bottled water; get rid of that gas-guzzling car and forget flying to far-flung places. These are just some of the sacrifices we in the West will need to make if we are to survive climate change.

The stark warning comes from the renowned Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based organisation regarded as the world’s pre-eminent environmental think tank.

[. . .]

“Habits that are firmly set – from where people live to what they eat — will all need to be altered and in many cases simplified or minimised… From Earth’s perspective, the American or even the European way of life is simply not viable.”

Of course, to enforce this new “way of life”, we’ll also have to give up our quaint, out-dated notions of liberty, civil rights, democracy, representative government and other relics of the Enlightenment. To save humanity, we’ll have to give up individuality: there’s no other way to eliminate the “wasteful” American or European lifestyle without massive employment of force. You can almost hear the hearts-a-flutter among the ranks of those who want to run your life for you (assuming you’re considered valuable enough to keep alive, of course . . . to save the human race, individual lives can’t be spared, comrade).

First to go would be the tourism industry: can’t have all those passenger jets flying to and fro, spewing all that evil carbon dioxide into the air. But don’t plan on driving anywhere . . . personal vehicles will be next. Mass transit will be the only allowable transportation. What’s that, comrade? Don’t live near a transit line? Get used to walking.

Oh, and better bone up on subsistence farming . . . that’s also in the blueprint. You’ll be expected to grow your own food as part of living the new “sustainable” lifestyle, along with only using “completely recyclable” goods.

Our would-be rulers appear not to have observed what happened the last time someone implemented this sort of radical policy. Or perhaps they have . . .

January 6, 2010

Behold the awesome power of Facebook groups

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Humour, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

The editors at the National Post poke some fun at their opposite numbers over at the Toronto Star:

We know about the Star editors’ foray onto the big exciting Interweb because of the newspaper’s front-page headline on Monday: “Grassroots fury greets shuttered Parliament.” The breathless story suggests Canada is on the verge of some kind of violent 1917-style revolution — a “growing public uprising” no less, complete with “protest rallies” from coast to coast, and young activists full of unhinged, wild-eyed rage. The evidence for all this: 20,000 people joined a Facebook page called “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament,” which urges Parliament to “Get back to work.”

[. . .]

For all we know, that 20,000 figure is up to 50,000 now, thanks to the Star publicity. Or maybe even 100,000. Who knows? But for the sake of context, let’s look at some other causes that also got a six-digit response: Almost 300,000 people have joined a group encouraging rocker John Mellencamp to quit smoking. Another hundred thousand people have joined a group encouraging random people to move to Finland. A whopping half-million people have used the power of Facebook to declare that they enjoy the television program 90210.

And then there’s our personal favourite: A group called “If 100,000 people join this group, Laura will name her son Megatron” recently met its goal. Congratulations, Laura, on the birth of your Transformer. We bet you didn’t know that he’d become the subject of — what does the Star call it? — oh yes, a “growing public uprising”!

January 2, 2010

This isn’t the way it was supposed to go

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:39

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, “Purple Avenger” tries to decipher the inscrutable Obama administration policy on information classification:

Here’s what I’ve found so far that I’m 100% sure of:

— There’s a 10 year “default” on declassifying classified info unless a longer time frame was specified and justified.

— Unclassified information may BECOME classified upon submission of a FOIA request for it . . . thus allowing for a public veneer of openness while reserving the right to clam up if said openness should prove inconvenient when someone actually learns of a document’s existence and has the nerve to request it.

Its a very lengthy and tortuously worded EO and people will be analyzing its ramifications for quite a while I suspect. I don’t imagine the professional intelligence community is terribly happy about the Byzantine procedures outlined here. Their jobs just got a lot harder.

December 31, 2009

Government moves quickly on TSA . . . to silence critics

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Law, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:11

In a bold move in the wake of the latest terrorist bomb attempt, the government has pounced . . . on the bloggers who reported on the TSA’s response:

As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.

TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.

Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his lap top computer. Frischling said the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn’t cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo.

December 29, 2009

Worst. Decade. Ever.

Filed under: Government, Humour, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 18:30

December 22, 2009

PJTV visits Detroit

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Government, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:53

Tim Worstall cheers the collapse of the Copenhagen circus

Filed under: Environment, Government, Politics, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:25

As Tim Worstall points out, the collapse of the Copenhagen talks is good news all around, regardless of your position on AGW:

Copenhagen is dead. Hurrah! And I say that as someone convinced that climate change is happening, we’re causing it, and we need to do something about it. However, what we don’t need to do is the ghastly mess that was being cooked up in Denmark.

They’ve essentially agreed to, um, well, try — and they’ll think a little bit more about what they’re going to try sometime later. And that’s the best result we could have hoped for. We already know what needs to be done, as the economists have worked it out. It is true that economists are not exactly the flavour of the month right now, but they are still the experts here.

We are trying to change people’s behaviour, and long experience tells us that the way to do that is to change the incentives people face. We might make it illegal to burn coal, for example — as we largely have done in British cities — and the motivation people would have for doing so would be an incentive not to.

Yet observation of humans over the past couple of centuries has shown that the carrot tends to provide a better incentive than the stick. Being shot for failing the Five Year Plan should concentrate minds more than the alternatives of bankruptcy or hot and cold running lingerie models which our own system provides for failure or success, but which has been better at producing economic growth? Quite.

What many had hoped would result from the Copenhagen meetings was an embryo form of world government . . . and the idea that it was being snuck into the discussions under cover of environmental concerns was a feature, from the point of view of those who favour supra-national controls. No democratic leader arrived in town with a mandate to give up national sovereignty, but many attending hoped that they could “do a fast one” regardless.

December 17, 2009

Maurice Strong rides again

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Government, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 07:26

This time, he’s leading the charge to enable more mob intimidation of governments:

Maurice Strong, the self-confessed “world’s leading environmentalist,” recently wrote that “Our concept of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified.” This would be less of a concern if Mr. Strong had not also been instrumental in allowing NGOs inside the Rio/Kyoto/Copenhagen process.

Mr. Strong himself hasn’t been so prominent since the Iraqi oil-for-food fiasco, but he is involved in something called The Global Observatory, GO, an organization designed to act as “a catalyst, bridging the gap between those responsible for making the decisions at [Copenhagen] and the public.”

GO was set up by José Maria Figueres, a former President of Costa Rica. Exactly what Mr. Figueres has in mind when he talks about “bringing the public into negotiations” is clear from a clip available on YouTube, in which he frankly admits that the key to getting the “right” decisions is using NGOs to assemble mobs to pressure politicians. Mr. Figueres says that he’s not willing to leave the future of his children in the hands of the 1,500 negotiators at Copenhagen, so his plan was to set up a “tent” at the meeting in which there would be scientific experts (He mentions Mr. Hansen). If such scientists declared that, say, Costa Rica was “backtracking,” then GO would get on the phone to select NGOs, who could have a mob outside the presidential palace in 45 minutes. This would result in a call to the country’s environment minister in Copenhagen to change their position.

December 11, 2009

They don’t call it the original Nanny State for nothing

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Government — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:05

In case you think the constant stories from Britain of increasing state surveillance of the citizenry are just unrelated events, Shattered Paradigm has more unrelated events for you:

#1) The U.K. has more surveillance cameras per citizen than anywhere else in the world. In fact, according to one estimate, there are 4.8 million video cameras constantly watching every move citizens make.

#2) Government education inspectors in the U.K. have announced that the 40,000 parents who homeschool their own children must undergo criminal records checks.

#3) U.K. authorities are now admitting that every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by private citizens will be stored for one year and will be available for monitoring by government agencies.

#4) Officials in the U.K. have spent two years and massive amounts of money on a study they claim proves that 10-pin bowling is a health and safety hazard and should be banned.

#5) Parents at one school in the U.K. are being forced to undergo background checks to prove that they are not pedophiles before they are allowed to accompany their children to school Christmas carol events.

H/T to Radley Balko, who says that the title “‘Most oppressive Big Brother society on earth’ is a bit much.”

December 6, 2009

What if Ron Paul were taken seriously by the GOP?

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 00:47

Howard Fineman tries to analyze the Ron Paul phenomenon:

I have to admit that I kind of like Rep. Ron Paul. Partly it’s that we’re both from Pittsburgh, and both began our careers as paperboys for the Pittsburgh Press. More important, Paul is something unusual in politics. He appears to believe in something. His fundamental views have not changed since 1971, when he decided to run for Congress in Texas because President Nixon abandoned the gold standard.

I don’t like labels, but in this case I’ll use some. Paul, a Duke-trained physician, is an angry, apocalyptic, populist, hard-currency libertarian. He is against paper money, the Federal Reserve, the income tax, and most of the federal government’s role in our lives, from fighting in Afghanistan to printing Social Security checks. Paul never saw an establishment he didn’t loathe. Many of his ideas are unworkable, some are dangerous, and some of his supporters are conspiracy theorists so paranoid, they probably think this column is part of the Plot. But, as odd as it seems, Paul has become a player in Washington and at the grassroots. His emergence should be a lesson to rudderless Republicans. They don’t want to scare away independent voters, but they need to find a way to emulate Paul’s outsider’s anger and his commitment to conservative essentials.

How much of a condemnation of American politics is it that you can tar someone by alleging that they “appear to believe in something”? Politicians are often portrayed as believing in nothing — except that it is critical that they be re-elected — but when it’s a smear to say that they hold any philosophical belief at all? Perhaps we really do deserve the governments we elect . . . as punishment.

December 4, 2009

Britain lowers defences against alien invasion

Filed under: Britain, Government, Military, Space — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 10:02

It’s true . . . the British are now wide-open to invaders from Rigel: they’ve re-assigned their UFO investigation forces to other duties:

The Ministry of Defence has closed its UFO unit after more than 50 years of investigating reported UK sightings.

A hotline and e-mail address for the public to report possible sightings was shut on 1 December because it had no “defence value”, the MoD said.

The officer handling reports has moved to another post, saving £44,000 a year.

The MoD said the unit had received thousands of reports, although none had yielded proof of aliens or any security threat to the UK.

Well of course they’d say that, wouldn’t they? Expect the mothership to show up any day now . . .

November 25, 2009

I thought Obama was going to be better than Bush on privacy issues

Filed under: Government, Law, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:04

Perhaps I was misinformed:

The Obama administration is seeking to reverse a federal appeals court decision that dramatically narrows the government’s search-and-seizure powers in the digital age.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Justice Department officials are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its August ruling that federal prosecutors went too far when seizing 104 professional baseball players’ drug results when they had a warrant for just 10.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 9-2 decision offered Miranda-style guidelines to prosecutors and judges on how to protect Fourth Amendment privacy rights while conducting computer searches.

Kagan, appointed solicitor general by President Barack Obama, joined several U.S. attorneys in telling the San Francisco-based court Monday that the guidelines are complicating federal prosecutions in the West. The circuit, the nation’s largest, covers nine states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

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