Quotulatiousness

November 30, 2010

Ireland’s debt problem

Filed under: Economics, Europe, Humour, Italy, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:48

James Howard Kunstler looks at Ireland’s plight:

When you’re out of the country, as I was last week, it’s good to know that the home folks are keeping up with the Kardashians and bravely venturing into the blood-splattered chambers of cable TV’s latest hit, Bridal Plasty — where candidates for marriage are transformed from Holstein cows into inflatable sex toys by magic surgical technology — not to mention all those humble guardians of freedom who kept the parking lots of WalMart safe for consumerism in the wee small hours of Black Friday. These are, after all, perilous times.

Elsewhere, Ireland and the rest of Europe wore themselves out with soul-searching all week over how to handle national bankruptcy within a currency system that bears only a schematic relation to reality. Does the bankruptee go broke all at once, or is she recruited into permanent debt slavery so that the bond-holders of various banks can keep their loved ones in marzipan and Fauchon’s wonderful marrons glacés for one more holiday season? As of Monday morning, Ireland has been commanded to, er, bend over and pick up the soap, shall we say, for about a hundred billion euros in loans that will not be paid back until a mile-high ice-sheet covers Dublin (something that might happen sooner rather than later if the climate mavens are right).

We’ll see how this bail-out goes down with the French and German voters, too, who have to pay for it, after all, especially as Portugal, Spain, and Italy line up at the cash cage for their cheques (and bars of soap). Of course, a few more basis points in the interest rate spreads could prang the whole Euro soap opera — does anybody really believe this game of kick-the-can will go on after New Years? I’m not even sure it goes on past this Friday, but I am a notoriously nervous fellow.

This is almost as good as the (temporarily discontinued) daily Financial Briefings from Monty.

H/T to Terry Kinder for the link.

The big hole in the TSA security screen

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:28

Even if the TSA is backing down on requiring pilots to go through the full pornoray scanner or humiliating pat-down, they’ve continued to leave a huge security hole open — apron workers and contract ground support staff:

Although the X-ray and metal detector rigmarole is mandatory for pilots and flight attendants, many other airport workers, including those with regular access to aircraft — to cabins, cockpits, galleys and freight compartments — are exempt. That’s correct. Uniformed pilots cannot carry butter knives onto an airplane, yet apron workers and contract ground support staff — cargo loaders, baggage handlers, fuelers, cabin cleaners, caterers — can, as a matter of routine, bypass TSA inspection entirely.

All workers with airside privileges are subject to fingerprinting, a 10-year criminal background investigation and crosschecking against terror watch lists. Additionally they are subject to random physical checks by TSA. But here’s what one apron worker at New York’s Kennedy airport recently told me:

“All I need is my Port Authority ID, which I swipe through a turnstile. The ‘sterile area’ door is not watched over by any hired security or by TSA. I have worked at JFK for more than three years now and I have yet to be randomly searched. Really the only TSA presence we notice is when the blue-shirts come down to the cafeteria to get food.”

H/T to Cory Doctorow for the link.

Stinson: Fantino ideal for Tories

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:13

Scott Stinson thinks that Julian Fantino’s victory in yesterday’s Vaughan by-election is great for the Tories’ “tough on crime” rhetoric:

Here’s what Mr. Fantino, who won a byelection on Monday to end a 22-year Liberal hold on the riding of Vaughan, had to say five years ago in response to a weekend of gun violence in Toronto, where he was chief at the time.

“People don’t like me talking about stiffer sentences,” he told the Post. “But in actual fact, so many of the people we deal with have been given but a kiss by the system, and I would say that the majority of them are all career criminals.”

Chief Fantino’s solution? A 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for gun-related crimes. Why, it’s the kind of thing that must put a twinkle in Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s eye.

[. . .]

And it’s the stuff for which Mr. Fantino has most recently been hotly criticized — allowing two-tiered policing at Caledonia, where native occupiers were allowed to break the law indiscriminately at a disputed housing development and his Ontario Provincial Police effectively abandoned the area rather than risk confrontation — that suggests he’s used to following orders.

The Ontario government didn’t want any trouble in Caledonia, and thanks to the see-no-evil strategy employed by its police force, it has so far avoided an Oka-type battle down in Haldimand County. That this tactic saw the OPP giving passes to the same criminals for whom Mr. Fantino would typically demand harsh punishment apparently did not trouble the force’s former commissioner. He seemed OK giving them “but a kiss by the system.” He was being a team player.

For someone carrying such a “tough on crime” reputation, he has an odd view of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and other trivial matters when they’re being exercised by the citizenry. Due process? Not something he appeared to care much about during his time at the OPP.

Update: Of course, no day is complete without someone trying to encourage the Liberals to bump off Michael Ignatieff:

Itching to see last night’s federal byelection result in Vaughan blown completely out of proportion? High-profile cop defeats Liberal nobody — when will Michael Ignatieff commit ritual seppuku next to the Centennial Flame? That sort of thing? The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson has the goods for you.

November 29, 2010

Oh noes! WikiLeaks show “undiplomatic” side of US diplomacy

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Italy, Media, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:43

The latest release of WikiLeaks’ cache of US government documents shows the undiplomatic side of things:

The documents obtained by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, some of which describe allies and adversaries in starkly blunt terms, could undermine the Obama administration’s efforts to improve ties that have frayed with some key countries in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.

As reported by The New York Times and other media, the cables at times deride or mock foreign officials, calling Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi a “feckless” partier and describe Afghan President Hamid Karzai as “weak” and “easily swayed.”

Below are highlights of the embarrassing comments from the new WikiLeaks documents.

— One July 2009 cable from the State Department’s intelligence bureau, posted by The New York Times, contains instructions to U.S. diplomats for collecting intelligence on the United Nations.

The directive, from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urges diplomats to collect biographical information on U.N. personnel, including such personal data as telephone, cellphone, pager and fax numbers and e-mail addresses; credit card account numbers; frequent flyer account numbers, work schedules, and Internet and intranet “handles” (or nicknames).

Here we go: a perfect example of government duplication of effort. Everyone knows it’s cheaper to buy this information from Facebook!

Other “worldshaking” revelations include:

The newspaper says one 2008 cable characterizes the relationship between Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, and its Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a partnership in which Medvedev, who has the grander title, “plays Robin to Putin’s Batman.”

It also says a cable describes Italy’s Berlusconi as “feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader.” One cable from Rome to Washington describes Berlusconi as “physically and politically weak” and asserts that his “frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest.”

In other words, pretty much common knowledge.

Update: William A. Jacobson thinks this is the Jimmy Carter moment for Barack Obama:

The U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran on November 4, 1979, was the start of 444 days which came to define Jimmy Carter. The U.S. government was revealed to be powerless and the President weak. Those among us who were alive and conscious during those days have embedded the feelings of helplessness.

There have been many comparisons of Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, focused on the economy. But the continuing leak of documents by Wikileaks has become for Obama what the Iranian hostage crisis was to Carter.

Blatchford: “Fantino wasn’t ‘there for the little guy’ in Caledonia”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:45

It’s probably safe to say that Christie Blatchford isn’t a fan of Julian Fantino, the Conservative candidate in the Vaughan by-election:

Now when Gary McHale, then of Richmond Hill, first poked his nose into the occupation that was going on in the town of Caledonia south of Hamilton, and began in late December, 2006, organizing rallies for those who objected to the way the Ontario government and the OPP were handling the occupation, Mr. Fantino had just taken over as the OPP boss.

He immediately demonized Mr. McHale, not a Caledonia resident, as “an outsider” with “an agenda.”

In a flood of internal e-mails to the officers who worked for him (these later were made public as a result of Mr. McHale’s various disclosure requests in court) and in his public statements, the then-commissioner went to remarkable lengths to characterize Mr. McHale and his supporters, to borrow from one of the e-mails Mr. Fantino sent, as “interlopers who put their own personal agendas” ahead of the purportedly grand peace efforts at the negotiating table.

It was an astonishing use of the resources of the state against a private citizen who had done nothing but exercise the very freedoms guaranteed by the Charter.

Of course, what made Fantino such a “great cop” is exactly why the Conservatives want him on their team:

But the point is, for a man hailed as the Conservatives’ hot new law-and-order fellow, there are some real questions about his credentials, at least as they showed themselves in Caledonia where the rule of law was shattered, and a rather terrifying indication of his willingness to turn the full beam of his attention and power upon individuals whose only sin is to disagree with him.

In this regard, I’m afraid, Mr. Fantino seems a sadly good fit for a party whose approach to law-and-order strikes me increasingly as cartoonish.

It must be pointed out, however, that the Liberals also tried to recruit Fantino to run for them. That reflects just as badly on Michael Ignatieff’s party as it does on Stephen Harper’s party.

If he is elected by the voters of Vaughan, he’s rumoured to be a shoo-in for a cabinet position. That says it all for the federal Conservatives.

November 26, 2010

British Columbia: Canada’s Banana Republic

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:50

A story in the Globe and Mail on how Elections BC rigged the rules after the fact to reject a petition:

Elections BC rejected a Fight HST recall application as too lengthy — but did so using rules that were drafted after it received the application.

The rejection has led recall organizers to suggest the province’s chief electoral officer deliberately thwarted their attempt to get approval to launch a petition to oust a Liberal MLA who supported the harmonized sales tax, and should step down.

While Elections BC has defended its new rules — which pushed the Fight HST application over a 200-word limit by counting the acronyms MLA and HST as eight words instead of two — recall organizers expressed concern that they were not included in the application form when they downloaded it from Elections BC’s website.

“It’s a total joke. This is the kind of thing they do in banana republics … when they don’t want to have elections or they don’t want people to win. And we’re doing it right here in Canada,” said Chris Delaney, an organizer of the Fight HST campaign.

H/T to Steve Muhlberger for the link.

“[T]he anti-TSA movement … is really a front for the Koch brothers”

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:46

Justin Raimondo pours scorn on the recent anti-libertarian hit piece in The Nation:

Speaking of implausible fiction, The Nation recently ran a piece by Mark “I spit on libertarians” Ames and Yasha Levine, which determined that the anti-TSA movement — that seems to have sprung up like a last gasp of life from the old America — is really a front for the Koch brothers, two formerly libertarian billionaires who have become the deus ex machina of clueless “progressive” commentators who cannot otherwise explain the explosion of anti-government anti-authoritarian populism currently upending politics. Glenn Greenwald seems to have taken care of the Ames-Levine fantasists, putting them in their proper place as apologists for the Obama regime and all its works, but one more thing needs to be said:

If Ames and Levine are going to become the “go to” team for the dirt on libertarians, such as it is, they ought to learn their subject. Because the very idea of Charles and David Koch leading a national resistance movement involving civil disobedience on a massive scale is laughable: to anyone who knows them, or knows of them in more than a glancing way, this can only provoke gales of unrestrained laughter. It is sheer laziness to believe this. Indeed, if only the Brothers Koch, and the plethora of organizations their money has funded, were that radical! Unfortunately, they are not: a stodgy, boring conservatism marks their both their methods and their politics, and always has.

Ames and Levine need to do some real research. It was the anti-Koch wing of the libertarian movement, centered around LewRockwell.com, that first gave John Tyner’s act of defiance the publicity and velocity that made it go viral. And if LRC is a front for the Koch brothers, then we have truly entered Bizarro World. In that case, so too is Antiwar.com a Koch front — and so why have we been doing this fundraising campaign for the past two weeks, begging our readers to save us from oblivion?

Gee, it seems like that check from the Kochs got lost in the mail! Charles, could you please look into that? Thanks.

H/T to Matt Welch for the link.

November 25, 2010

QotD: “The Traitors and the Spendthrifts”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 14:17

The Coalition horrors warned of by the Conservatives have come to pass, at the hands of the Conservatives themselves. They have spent like drunken Trudeau-era Grits. They have compromised their principles and told a key part of their base to stuff it. They have put patronage ahead of promise in their Senate appointments. Short of holding another referendum on national unity, they are as bad as what they claim to abhor.

It should then come as no surprise that Stephen the Spendthrift is rumoured to be in bed with Giles the Traitor. The deal at hand is classic pork-barrelling: Federal subsidies for an uneconomical Quebec City NHL arena. The region is the Tories only stronghold in La Belle Province, naturally a little electoral sweetener wouldn’t go amiss. Tis’ the season to be generous, with other people’s money. The Bloc serve no function except as a pressure group for the Quebecois. Their tautological platform has only one plank: What is Good for Quebec is Good for Quebec. It’s a deal made in political heaven, or hell for those who believe that principle should play a role in politics.

The much-abused Tory base remains loyal. The question is to what? To conservative values? Unlikely. Yes, the Tories have a minority government. That does limit what they can do. Lester Pearson also had two back to back minority governments, and he introduced sweeping changes to the country, albeit most of them bad.

Is the failure of the Harper Tories one of opportunity, or courage? And should the Conservatives at long last win their majority, what mandate will they have? They have governed from the center for so long, how can they justify governing from the RIght? Won’t the rationale then become we can’t take risks because we might lose the majority? So when will the Reform come? As time passes it becomes clear that many Conservatives’ loyalty lies with Team Blue, not conservative ideas or values.

Publius, “The Traitors and the Spendthrifts”, Gods of the Copybook Headings 2010-11-25

Publius argues against Julian Fantino’s candidacy in Vaughan

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 00:50

Publius thinks that Julian Fantino does not deserve the easy ride he’s getting in his attempt to win the Vaughan by-election:

The image of the crime-fighting crusader contrasts sharply with the OPP’s inaction during the occupation of the Douglas Creek Estate. Fantino’s status as a star candidate for the Conservative Party belies opposition from genuine conservatives.

In his four years in power Stephen Harper has played bait and switch with the Canadian electorate. He has talked of conservative values, and fear mongered on the dangers of a Liberal-NDP coalition government, while running a government which is fiscally to the Left of those of Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. In Julian Fantino he has again offered Canadians a false bill of goods, a law and order candidate who, as OPP commissioner, failed to uphold basic law and order.

What has allowed the Prime Minister to get away, so far, with the candidacy of Julian Fantino is the near silence the MSM has offered on the Caledonia tragedy. With the honourable exception of Christie Blatchford, the media has largely ignored the near anarchy which persisted for years in a Canadian small town, all within driving distance of Toronto. Canadian television journalists should long ago have stopped, if only for a moment, chasing down crooked used car salesmen, and paid attention to what should have been the biggest news story of the last five years. Placing the violence of Caledonia in Canadian living rooms, might have ended the tragedy and pain much sooner.

November 22, 2010

David Nolan, co-founder of the US Libertarian Party

Filed under: History, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:33

Dave Weigel has an appreciation of the late David Nolan:

The 66-year-old libertarian activist David Nolan died on Saturday; he had a stroke while driving, then crashed his car.

Some of the vital history of anti-statist politics dies with him. In the 1960s, Nolan was a YAF and Students for Goldwater activist. 1971, Nolan was watching Richard Nixon on TV with some like-minded friends when the president announced that he’d be introducing wage controls and price controls. The Libertarian Party was born in his living room; its first national convention was held months later, in Nolan’s Denver. He built it, according to Brian Doherty’s essential history Radicals for Capitalism, by tapping a list of disgruntled libertarian-minded YAFers for funds, and then relentlessly promoting the party with cast-aside libertarians around the country.

[. . .]

It’s unusually difficult to say what Nolan’s legacy will be. He leaves behind a small “l” libertarian movement that is more powerful, with greater control over the levers of the GOP and more footing in popular culture, than at any time in living memory. (Witness the current, libertarian-driven backlash against the TSA if you want proof.) He also leaves behind a Libertarian Party that, like almost every third party in American history, struggles for relevance and has its best ideas co-opted by major party politicians who go on to disappoint their supporters. But if the measure of an activist’s success is bringing attention to his ideas, and bringing them from the fringe of respectability to the center, David Nolan was a success. After all, in 1971, the “crazy” guy was the one who thought price controls were a bad idea.

“Anti-racism” is not the same as being opposed to racism

Filed under: Britain, Liberty, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:33

Ed West responds to reader complaints about a recent column:

The conventional definition of racism is the belief that “race” (however one defines that) is a primary or significant cause of differences between men; that some of these races are superior to others; and that it is acceptable to discriminate on grounds of race, or to behave unpleasantly to someone because of their race. The term dates to the 1930s, although “racialist” and “racialism” go back to the Edwardian period.

“Anti-racism” means something altogether different, and is best explained by the Civitas book Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics, an account of the Salem-like events that gripped Britain in the 1990s. The authors cite the example of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW), which in 1991 set out the implementation of its new Diploma in Social Work.

The first tenet was “the self-evident truth” that “racism is endemic in the values, attitudes and structures of British society”.

The training manual then stated “steps need to be taken to promote permeation of all aspects of the curriculum by an anti-racist analysis”. All “racist materials” had to be withdrawn from the syllabus and CCETSW would decide what was racist.

In the rules there would be no freedom of speech for opinions that can be constructed as “racist” or favourable to “racism”, and “anti-racist practice requires the adoption of explicit values”. The first value is that individual problems have roots in “political structures” and “not in individual or cultural pathology”. (In other words, if different groups have different outcomes in terms of education or crime levels, it is all the fault of British racism, not of individuals).

A second value is that racial oppression and discrimination are everywhere to be found in British society, even when invisible. In other words, impossible to disprove!

November 20, 2010

True confessions time

Filed under: Environment, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:46

James Delingpole celebrates the humble watermelon:

Watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside. This is the theme of my forthcoming book on the controlling, poisonously misanthropic and aggressively socialistic instincts of the modern environmental movement. So how very generous that two of that movement’s leading lights should have chosen the anniversary of Climategate to prove my point entirely.

The first comes courtesy of German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer who has openly admitted what some of us have been saying for some time: that “Climate Change” has nothing to do with man’s modest and thoroughly unthreatening contribution to global mean temperatures, nor even with the plight of baby polar bears so sweet you could almost hug them if you didn’t know they’d take your arm off in a trice. All it is, really, is a Marxist exercise in minority grievance-mongering and wealth redistribution on a global scale.

Or, as Edenhoffer so helpfully puts it it Neue Zurcher Zeitung: (H/T Global Warming Policy Foundation):

First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.

The use of glamour to advance weak economic ideas

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 11:09

Virginia Postrel highlights the power of glamour even in technical and economic arguments:

When Robert J. Samuelson published a Newsweek column last month arguing that high-speed rail is “a perfect example of wasteful spending masquerading as a respectable social cause,” he cited cost figures and potential ridership to demonstrate that even the rosiest scenarios wouldn’t justify the investment. He made a good, rational case — only to have it completely undermined by the evocative photograph the magazine chose to accompany the article.

The picture showed a sleek train bursting through blurred lines of track and scenery, the embodiment of elegant, effortless speed. It was the kind of image that creates longing, the kind of image a bunch of numbers cannot refute. It was beautiful, manipulative and deeply glamorous.

The same is true of photos of wind turbines adorning ads for everything from Aveda’s beauty products to MIT’s Sloan School of Management. These graceful forms have succeeded the rocket ships and atomic symbols of the 1950s to become the new icons of the technological future. If the island of Wuhu, where games for the Wii console play out, can run on wind power, why can’t the real world?

Policy wonks assume the current rage for wind farms and high-speed rail has something to do with efficiently reducing carbon emissions. So they debate load mismatches and ridership figures. These are worthy discussions and address real questions.

But they miss the emotional point.

I guess it’s a sign of weakness for the economic folks that they don’t realize how much of the battle for public support can rest on non-economic factors. You might be able to win all the technical battles, but it’s often the emotional factors that determine victory overall.

November 19, 2010

The A400M is a “Euro-wanking make-work project”

Filed under: Britain, Military, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:32

Gotta love those unbridled opinions in British politics:

A peer and former defence minister has described the A400M military transport plane — which is being bought by the cash-strapped UK armed forces for a secret but outrageous amount of money — as a “Euro-wanking make-work project” in the written Parliamentary record.

The straight talk came from Lord Gilbert, who held various ministerial portfolios in the 1970s – including a defence one – and did another spell in the MoD as a peer in the first years of the Blair government. Last week he made the following remarks in the House of Lords:

I regard the decision on the A400M as the most bone-stupid in the 40 years that I have been at one end or other of this building. It is an absolutely idiotic decision. We have a military airlift fleet of C-17s and C-130s. We have total interoperability with the United States… six or seven countries altogether will be flying the A400M. Flying the C130, which it is intended to replace, are 60 countries, with 2,600 or so C130Js currently being used. That is the interoperability that we are losing…

November 18, 2010

Another fan of Christie Blatchford’s Helpless

Filed under: Books, Bureaucracy, Cancon, Law, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:47

Father Raymond J. deSouza points out that the actions of the OPP in Caledonia have ended up hurting peaceful native and non-native Ontarians:

If you are pressed for time, abandon this column now and immediately read the excerpt in these section from Christie Blatchford’s new book, Helpless. In that book, she details how two-tier justice came to Caledonia, Ont., in 2006 — immunity for native Canadians; and neglect, contempt and harassment for the non-native victims of crime. It is a scandalous tale, simply told.

[. . .]

Lest anyone think that Blatchford’s book is an attack on native aspirations, consider who suffers the most when lawlessness is permitted in native communities: the natives who live there. Not enforcing the law in native communities puts out a large welcome mat for organized crime and corruption.

[. . .]

Yet Blatchford’s book is not about native issues. It’s about the failure of the provincial government and the OPP to enforce the laws — even after a judge issued an injunction to end the illegal activity. Moreover, it’s about the OPP’s abuse of power. The most disturbing pages are about Julian Fantino, then OPP commissioner and now Conservative candidate in a federal byelection, who came perilously close to using police force to restrict the liberties of a free citizen with the temerity to protest the OPP’s policy of non-enforcement in Caledonia.

I noted with disgust that the federal Conservatives had not only nominated Julian Fantino for their candidate in the byelection, but were being quite open about protecting him from questions on his conduct of the Caledonia affair. If I’d ever considered voting for a Conservative candidate in the next federal election, that alone would make me reconsider.

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