Jerry Aldini

Henley, cont'd.

2007-04-12T07:04:00.000-06:00

Ultimately, we must end the insane and vicious drug war. What on earth does the drug war have to do with a glory hound DA pushing a nonexistent case for personal status and glory? Quite a lot. Because it’s essentially impossible to fight the drug war “clean,” we keep changing laws to make it easier for law enforcement to fight it dirty. We weaken warrant provisions; we encourage systems of informants and undercover work that are in their very structure dishonest. We criminalize an ever wider circle of behaviors - paying cash; buying decongestants; installing indoor gardening facilities - in the name of surrounding the less crackable violations at the core of drug use and sale. We turn entire categories of people into presumptive suspects, from young black men to Latin American travelers. We turn prisons into factories for rape and colleges of crime, packing them to the walls with young men who come in nonviolent offenders and come out cold and mean.

Most of all, we make a lot more violent crime than we need to have. We raise the prices of goods that would otherwise be cheap to the point where its consumers will rob to pay for them; we put untold billions of commerce outside the protection of courts and contract, so that everyone who conducts it perforce becomes a do-it-yourself enforcer; an ever-larger regimen of drug testing makes it harder for addicts and mere users to get honest work.

Making more crime makes law enforcement people tend to view themselves in terms at once desperate and grandiose. We produce a class of narcissistic cynics. The abuse that follows is inevitable. We can be glad when isolated cases of overreach fall apart, but the problem is not the occasional nails that stick out. The problem is the architecture itself.

-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings

Thought for the Day

2006-08-23T09:27:00.000-06:00

It's the "realistic" so-called libertarians who show up in one or other forum to chide the movement for marginalizing itself by pursuing the "fringe issue" of drug prohibition. But realistically, drug prohibition is the whole political ballgame. It drives the aggrandizement of police power and the paring of civil liberties. It establishes precedents that generalize to other law enforcement issues. It exemplifies and undergirds the principles of the Loco Parentis state. It is everything any libertarianism worthy of the name must not only oppose, but make central. There is no area of American life where the state said more clearly, "We must be free to kill you with impunity to protect you from making bad choices."

-- Jim Henley, Unqualified Offerings

Projection

2006-02-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

Chris Selley approvingly cites a Dan Gardner column about the blogosphere echo chamber. Is it a problem, or rather, a big deal? I'd probably pick No, mainly because there's nothing to be done about it (i.e. if you had infinite resources, what would you do to solve this problem?).

Anyway, I mainly wanted to address this bit. Gardner's take, Selley's emphasis:

But the explosion of voices on the Internet also made it possible for people to obtain all their news, analysis and opinions exclusively from like-minded sources.

This paradox has been around since before the first day I read a blog, and I wish the people who promote it would do a better job backing it up. Here's my non-paradoxical counter-thesis: as the number of sources of analysis & opinion in the universe increases, so does people's exposure to them. I think this is a good thing, regardless of which sources they reference most and trust the most.

I also believe that like-minded people getting together and egging each other on is not a human phenomenon that appeared along with the popularization of the blog. I further believe that the echo-chamber phenomenon is way overstated. Take the Shotgun, for example: for a place that's sealed off from the outside world, there's sure a lot of references to the dreaded Main Stream Media.

And also, inherent in Gardner's piece is the idea that it was different before the Internet. I'm highly skeptical; I wish someone show me an example of a person who was broadly engaged with the world and its diversity in 1990, but has since shut themselves off from all but the most friendly takes.

People are always searching for explanations as to why others have strongly-held opinions, especially when those opinions are immoderate. I think Gardner's take is just the most contemporary of those explanations.

Election Day thoughts

2006-01-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

Boy, it's been a while since I posted anything of substance here (and maybe the streak continues; judge for yourself).

Let me start by patting myself on the back: not because I was influential, but because I was right. Here's what I wrote last February at budget time:

If only there was some nice motherhood issue that the CPC could take ownership of, and use it to beat the Liberals senseless... hmmmm... I've got it! How about motherhood! It should be obvious that if the CPC came out with one specific reason why they can't support the budget (despite being otherwise "pleased"), that reason would get a lot of attention. That's why this should be what Stephen Harper is saying this morning:

"...the Conservative Party cannot support any budget which provides for the establishment of the Liberals' lunatic plan for a federal daycare system. There are a bevy of reasons to oppose this terrible, terrible plan, and they generally fall under two broad objections.

First, it's a massive government program, and the Liberals have proven themselves totally incompetent at making sure such programs achieve their intended objective.

Second and more importantly, if the Liberals wish to spend five billion dollars to help parents and children, what they should be doing is giving them the money. For some families, the money would help cover the costs of ongoing daycare for their children. For some parents, it would allow them to use daycare less, and spend more time with their own children. And for some families who already have a stay-at-home parent, it will allow them to provide more opportunites for their children.

Even if there were a magical guarantee that the federal daycare system would be the most efficient and effective program in the history of Canadian government, it is still a less appealing alternative than empowering parents to make their own decisions as to what is best for their children.

[...] We are not keen on an immediate election, but if there needs to be one to let Canadians decide who knows best for their children - the Liberals or themselves - then so be it."

I also had this, in March:

...the CPC can become loud and proud promoters of family values, without getting caught up in crap like boobs on TV. Loudly oppose the daycare "system", offering parents the choice (and increased resources through lower taxes etc.) to do what's best for their own family. The Liberals can demagogue this issue however they like, but if it's on the front page, it's a winner for the CPC...

The Conservative win today will be attributed, correctly and incorrectly, to all sorts of things, but it seems to be fairly unanimous that among issues of policy, child care has been the CPC's biggest vote-mover.

Personally, I won't be voting today. Jay Jardine has convinced me, and this graf pretty much sums up my reasoning:

...no matter what shenanigans the next horse thief gets up to while occupying 24 Sussex, I can rest assured that he did so without my consent or assistance.

That said, I can't say I'm totally indifferent to the outcome. I like Stephen Harper, and I still have an irrational hope that he is, in fact, harbouring a secret agenda to dismantle the welfare state. (And it is irrational--I think Andrew Coyne's conclusion in his NYT piece is wishful thinking):

Previous Conservative prime ministers aspired only to run the Liberal machine for themselves, leaving the motor running for the Liberals when they returned. Mr. Harper wants to dismantle it, piece by piece.

Maybe Coyne and Harper had a private conversation; it's hard to account for where else he would have gotten this impression.

Also, I supported Harper before you did. Yes, you, I'm talking to you, unless you happened to vote Reform in a Calgary West advance poll in 1988.

My Social 10 class did a straw poll the week before the '88 election (Sir Winston Churchill High School, in NW Calgary). Our Fred Henry-type teacher (Mr. Thunberg) put up the choices on the board: PC, Liberal, and NDP. I actually put up my hand: "Are we allowed to vote for the Reform Party?" He was taken slightly aback, then said, "oh, of course!" and marked Reform on the board.

We marked our "secret" ballots, and Thunberg counted them up. I don't remember who won, but I certainly remember him marking a '1' next to Reform, and every kid in the class turning to stare at me. Talk about busted.

Anyway, a chubby young economist named Stephen Harper was the Reform candidate in Calgary West that election. Since then I've voted Reform/CA/CPC in every election, and I voted for Harper as the leader of both the CA and the CPC. I like him less now than I ever have, but I certainly wish him well personally. (Last election day, I posted a list of 10 things he should try to accomplish as a minority PM, and I still hope he takes a crack at them. I'm not holding my breath.)

Lastly: prediction time! I have no idea on the seat breakdown. Darrell Bricker says projections for the CPC seat total are centred in the 140s, and that anyone who thinks the Liberals might win is "paranoid". I'll defer to his analysis there.

My sole prediction is that Anne McLellan will retain her Edmonton Centre seat by about 600 or so votes. It says here that "irrelevant" factors are: (A) wanting to vote for the winning party, and (B) wanting someone local in Cabinet. It says here that "relevant" factors are: (A) an unwillingness to see the Conservatives win the seat, expressed 4 times previously; (B) personal affection for Ms. McLellan; and (C) the "votes are sticky" concept noted by Colby Cosh.

Two days ago, I would have added a caveat to this prediction: that it assumes Landslide Annie won't take a dive if the writing ("Liberals defeated!") is on the wall. The local accounts are that she is not. Congrats in advance on your 5th consecutive victory, Anne.

Weird Things

2006-01-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

The man (?) with the shortest alias in the blogosphere has tagged me with the "5 Weird Things" meme. What the heck--any excuse to make a monthly post here, I say!

1. Not only do I usually skip breakfast, but I also usually skip lunch. Your average weekday sees me consume nothing but coffee until supper time. I'm just not hungry.

2. I get "embarrassed" listening to call-in shows, even about trivial things like hockey, when I'm alone. If a caller says something particularly stupid, I'm compelled to turn the radio off rather than hear it play out.

3. I haven't seen Titanic. Or any of the last 3 Star Wars movies. I just saw the Godfather last year (turns out I was missing something!).

4. I'd rather drive my own crappy car than someone else's nice car. Cause, you know, it's mine, I guess.

5. I frequently call my sons "Boy", a la Homer and Bart Simpson. This isn't so much weird as quasi-abusive, I suppose, but whatever.

Looks like everyone else has already done this thing, so I won't pass it on. See you next month, or you can visit me at the other place. Go Flames.

Flit

2005-12-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

I support my tax dollars going towards families with young children. I have absolutely no interest in them being used to apply economic force on Canadians to institutionalize their children from the age of two...

That's Bruce Ralston. The second part is very well-said. (Myself, I don't support my tax dollars going towards families with young children; I support my dollars, period, going toward family with young children, that being mine.) Here's Mike at The London Fog, saying the same thing more cruelly yet hilariously:

Your children: parasites

Yes, you personally. Excuse me now, no time for a post about this. Even though I wasn't the one who impregnated you, your wife, or your alternative lifestyle partner, I have to go to work to help feed your stupid kids.

Hey, when's the last time you heard someone say, "You know what the problem is with this country? It's that kids don't have enough government-funded, structured learning before kindergarten!"

For that matter, when's the last time you heard someone say, "You know what our government should be doing? Taking more money from people without kids, and giving it to people who do."

I don't think I'll be voting in this election (whatever you think of that, rest assured that my one vote, as reliably as anywhere in the country, really doesn't make a difference). But I suppose I'm not indifferent to the outcome; any result which leads to the shit-canning of this terrible, terrible Liberal plan for National Child Care would please me, relative to the CPC alternative or nothing.

(Call me a rent-seeker, I suppose: I will never send my kids to government daycare, whereas I would certainly keep any money the government mails me or declines to confiscate from me, regardless of its stated purpose.)

90,000 Watts of Dolby sound

2005-11-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

The title of an Agitator post today (and the content) reminded me of an old Weird Al song.

If I were Alaska's Auditor General, I'd keep an eye out for any untendered contracts with Panasonic.

It's because he thinks we're stupid, cont.

2005-11-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

Martin refuses to 'play politics' with opposition
CTV.ca News Staff

Prime Minister Paul Martin insists he will remain focused on governing, despite mounting pressure from opposition parties to force an election early in the new year.

"I'm going to govern and I'll let the opposition play politics," Martin told reporters in Belleville, Ont. Thursday.

Martin said his government had an ambitious agenda involving aboriginal issues, the environment and cutting down on wait times for medical procedures. He said he wanted to see that completed before asking voters to cast judgment.

"govern", "ambitious", and "completed": man, this guy's vocabulary has grown in the past couple of weeks.

"Cake, meet cake-eating!"

2005-10-03T10:39:00.000-06:00

Evan Kirchhoff has written another Instant Classic, this time on the subject of gasoline prices.

I know we're all supposed to be avoiding nonessential travel and so on, but what is the logical leap from the fact that gas is now $3 per gallon to the moral assertion that I ought to take new steps to conserve it? Here's a parallel piece of economic data: "a large pizza is fourteen dollars". Would you say that fact morally obliges me to eat more pizza, less pizza, or about the same amount of pizza?

I don't know that any individual point he makes is 100% original, but who cares?

Yes, I understand that we are currently facing damaged U.S. gasoline production and delivery, plus contention for crude oil with Asia, plus an Ominously Uncertain Global Era in which "ease of oil extraction" is highly correlated with "craziness of local government". But I also assume that these factors should be fully captured and expressed in the fact that gasoline costs three bucks. That's what prices are for, right? There are obviously things worth doing with $2 gasoline that aren't worth it at $3, but that's a purely practical decision; there is no added moral dimension here.

This is his specialty: explaining clearly and humourously, in under 1500 words, why "what your elected representative is proposing to solve your problem" is a terrible idea, and will most likely achieve the exact opposite of its intent.

What we have are middle-class consumers in the richest country in history whining about temporary 50-cent increases, which means that for a few weeks it costs an additional $10 or so to fill the trucks whose gas mileage they didn't care about until approximately last month. Obviously any modern government must immediately appease them with socialized energy, as opposed to telling them to grow up and cut their damned latte budget by 10 bucks or (my preference) reduce their overbidding on the nation's housing stock by 0.000001%.

You should immediately forward his piece to everyone you've ever heard complain about gas prices.

Also, I admit that I have raised our prices over time, even while the cost of computing equipment has dropped. I know! Behold the terrible visage of the gouger! But even as you recoil, I tell you that there are many of us: for example, I have heard that some companies have employees who will ask for more money for doing the same jobs as before, in a nefarious practice they call a "raise". Gougers every one!

Seasons change, etc.

2005-09-23T14:22:00.000-06:00

With the NHL season upon us, and both the Flames and the Oilers bearing some very high expectations, I've started a new blog with my old friend Bob Sacamano called The Battle of Alberta. I'm not forsaking this blog, but I would expect updates to continue at the present rate of 2-3 times per week for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, the B of A site is already getting rave reviews, not to mention pulling more traffic than I've ever had here outside the odd Cosh link or Roadkillanche. A sample:

"[Of all the new hockey blogs,] I'm most impressed with Odd Man Rush and the Battle of Alberta.." - Tom Benjamin
"Looks like another fine hockey blog.." - Eric Mcerlain
"..an excellent blog completely devoted to this ongoing war." - Odd Man Rush
"..isn't it about time somebody founded a group hockey weblog devoted to trash talk between Calgary and Edmonton? Would that not be the best thing ever?" - Colby Cosh

And putting the self-promotion aside for a moment, there's another very promising new sports blog up and running - go check out Sports Matters. It's the work of Andy Grabia (aka the Cosby Sweater guy) and four of his buddies, and they muse and argue about all things sport. Ignore the sexual tensions evident in their bickering -- it's a good-looking blog, and I like it a lot so far. :)

Late -

Not the worst thing to wake up to

2005-09-21T10:29:00.000-06:00

So Mrs. Aldini turned on the news this morning, and discovered that our family's net worth has increased by $1,600.00:

Every man, woman and child in Alberta will get $400 from the province's unbudgeted surplus, the Alberta government announced Tuesday.

My personal reaction to this is, of course, "Hot damn!" If I were to complain about it, it certainly wouldn't be from this angle:

"These cheques will mean some people can pay their heating bills but for other people it might mean a ski trip or a fancy dinner," said Liberal Leader Kevin Taft.

"If we added it all up, and used it together, we could provide hospitals for everybody in Edmonton and Calgary, we could provide free tuition for university and college students for years to come. We could do all kinds of wonderful things.

So, economics author Kevin Taft appears to believe that ski trips and fancy dinners are objectively a waste of money. Seriously: there is zero difference in principle between his statement and arguing that all ski hills and fancy restaurants should be shut down, and that the money that Albertans might spend there should be confiscated by government for the greater good.

If I were to complain about it, it would only be to argue that there may be better ways to return roughly (3 million X $400) $1.2 billion to Alberta taxpayers.

Clint Dunford, Tory member for Lethbridge West, said the plan is the simplest way "to give back to Albertans without having a huge bureaucracy."

Almost! But by that logic, they probably ought to have eliminated health care premiums instead, since then not only would ~$1B be returned to taxpayers this year, but they could also eliminate the bureaucracy that exists to assess and collect the premiums.

(Sidebar: for the uninitiated, the Alberta Health Care Premium is not an actual premium, which I would quite possibly support. It's a tax you pay that has no connection whatsoever to your consumption of health care, and like too many taxes & programs, the single-income family making $40k/year is hit hardest).

Anyway, I had a related discussion (rant?) about this in July with Jardine and Mapmaster. I said that I wasn't as hard on Ralph Klein and the Alberta Tories as I ought to be in principle, but that I could basically live with their way of doing things in the name of "staying under the radar", the radar in question being that of central Canada and the federal government.

That is, Alberta cannot be overly aggressive with lowering taxes and the like because if the difference between the standard of living here and in the Rest of Canada is too great, then the Rest of Canada will take it upon themselves to even things out. So fine: let's have the lowest provincial income tax, but not by an order of magnitude; let's pay our nurses and teachers the best, but not by 25%; let's have cigarettes and cases of beer be a buck cheaper, gasoline 5c/L lower, etc. etc. - but nothing so stark as to make the envious-minded in the RoC get any big bad ideas.

Riding this train of thought, eliminating health care premiums should be an obvious move for Klein; since most other provinces don't have them at all, no one can cry, "Unfair! Alberta's so rich, they don't even have to charge health care premiums!" Conversely, the absolute worst thing he could do in this regard is mail cash to everyone in the province.

I can only surmise that Klein et al have decided that Ottawa's radar gun has gone off, and there's no more hiding. If that's the case, then politically (and in principle), it certainly makes sense to force your local and national opponents to come out against giving your constituents some of their money back - i.e. to force people to say things like the Kevin Taft quote above. Yeah, we're basically a big government country, but there is still a large cohort in the centre of the political spectrum who seethe when they are forced to confront politicians who are clearly stating, "We can spend your money better than you can."

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Maybe Klein isn't going all-in -- Colby Cosh still has his poker face on.

UPDATE2: Yes, Cosh's update does go without saying. In fact, just to spite Mr. Taft, I am going to spend some of the money on a fancy dinner for my family. Hah! Then my restaraunt operator and waitress will put that extra money under their mattress forever, where it will benefit absolutely no one. No, wait. Is my waitress going to university? Hmmm.

Dangit! I wish I had taken more economics classes. Anyway Taft, we're also going to get a new kitchen table and chairs. If you'd prefer, I can use the cheque to pay my heating bills for the next year or so, and use the money I would have used for the gas bill to buy furniture. Would that make you happy? If not, I beg you to explain how, in economic principles, there isn't a lick of difference between the two options. But you won't, because said principles, when applied broadly, are more useful for me advancing my goals than you yours.

Here's what I'm talking about...

2005-09-15T23:26:00.000-06:00

Me, yesterday:

...any sports pundit who attempts to argue that Barry Bonds is somehow bad for baseball is verifiably insane. He is simply the most compelling on-field figure in the sport.

Now here's Dan Wetzel at Yahoo! Sports, today, providing a stellar example of what's wrong with so much sportswriting nowadays:

For three days they have clapped and called and cared for BALCO Barry Bonds, the wine and sushi crowds of the San Francisco Giants' SBC Park pretty much eliminating the hope that this could be a new era of baseball fan, where lying, cheating and "flaxseeds" could be significant enough that you'd boo even your own guy.

Read the whole thing, and in case you can't believe your eyes: Yes, he is saying that every fan that does not boo a player implicated in steroid use is either an "imbecile" or should be "ashamed". Fans not meeting Wetzel's standards include Giants fans and Yankees fans. So far, that is. Cardinals fans, be forewarned:

With Mark McGwire set to make a rare public appearance during the Busch Stadium finale in October, St. Louis Cardinals fans will have the chance to show whether all of that "St. Louis is America's best baseball town" is real or just a marketing concept.

He doesn't make it entirely clear how icy McGwire's reception needs to be to satisfy him. Boos from every direction would apparently be great; I'm not sure if polite applause crosses the line.

Wetzel's shite should be read by all aspiring sportswriters as a reminder that over-the-top moralizing is a poor substitute for crisp and original thought, let alone "watching and commenting on sports". For the love of Pete, he thinks the reason that Raffy Palmeiro got a worse fan reception than Bonds and Giambi did (and McGwire will) is that Baltimore's fans are purer:

In Baltimore, the fans were so smart and so strong. They saw a fraud and they called him out, home whites be damned.

At least one town gets it.

ohcomeon. This is all damning stuff: poor style, no actual ideas, etc. But the proof Wetzel is in the wrong line of work is in this sentence:

[Giants fans] waved rubber chickens and only booed when San Diego Padres pitchers looked at this chemical robot built to hit balls into San Francisco Bay and smartly pitched around him.

My emphasis, Wetzel's horseshit. If you want to demonize the use of steroids without any reservations, I think you're an ass, but go ahead. But reflected in Wetzel's excerpt here is a lack of appreciation for the difficulty of hitting a baseball into San Francisco Bay that ought to disqualify would-be baseball pundits.

Damn, I love the Sports Guy's Mailbag

2005-09-15T15:26:00.000-06:00

Today's highlight (I've seen the movie at least a dozen times):

For "best slow clap," I feel somewhat betrayed by the fact that a self-confessed "Can't Buy Me Love" fan would neglect to mention Big John's inspired slow clap following Ronnie Miller's passionate lunchtime speech to Quint. I imagine I feel somewhat like Kenneth did after he caught Ronnie in the net on Halloween. I'm going to the arcade now to play a motorbike racing game.
-- Mike, Chicago

This one was pretty good too, the topic being "meeting a big star, and congratulating them on a very old and/or embarrassing role":

When I was in LA, I was at a bar watching the early morning Sunday games (West Coast people drinking beers at 9 a.m. waiting for football. Really good) and Leo DiCaprio was there. We went over to him and told him he was "Phenomenal in Growing Pains." The look of death was priceless. Even better by the next line. I said to my buddy "I can't believe we're meeting Kirk Cameron!"
-- Crash, New York

That's got to be made up.

Two things

2005-09-14T12:29:00.000-06:00

Radley Balko, in the course of introducing his guestbloggers, pointed to the "Two Things" meme.

"...For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important."

I was unaware of the meme per se, but familiar with the concept. Not long after I started in the buildings industry, I was informed of the Two Things you really need to know to be a plumber:

Shit flows downhill
Payday is every second Friday

A couple of years later, this came up in a discussion with another plumber, who had just spent his week emptying cleanouts at a pig slaughterhouse (a task, I'm told, which makes unplugging a residential toilet seem like watering the begonias in comparison). Anyway, he advised me of a third thing, or 2A if you prefer:

Don't chew your fingernails.

Indeed.

And speaking of horses' asses...

2005-09-14T11:40:00.000-06:00

Barry Bonds' batting line from last night:

4PA, 2BB, 1H, 1K, .500BA, .750OBP

And most importantly:

Giants win

Barry Bonds is widely, if not unanimously, regarded as simply not a very good guy. He gets criticized for his attitude; his relationship with teammates, fans, and the media; his training and pharmaceutical regimen; his body armour; etc. etc. ad nauseam. I'm sure most of the criticism is deserved.

But any sports pundit who attempts to argue that Barry Bonds is somehow bad for baseball is verifiably insane. He is simply the most compelling on-field figure in the sport.

Has Tart Cider been alerted?!?

2005-09-14T11:33:00.000-06:00

Zed has some hot gossip:

Big buzz in the Parliamentary press gallery today over former Liberal cabinet minister and Deputy PM Sheila Copps. She's joining Quebecor as a columnist, and will be filing twice a week for both the Sun papers (en anglais) and Le Journal de Montréal (in French).

The appropriate reaction to this news is "Together At Last!", shurely (although I'm not complaining about Zed's "Where's a wooden stake when you need one?"). Bonus buzz:

I'm hearing that other Sun stalwarts in the Ottawa bureau are not thrilled at the prospect of bumping into Copps at the coffee machine.

Heh. Actually, I would expect she and Earl McCrae to get along just fine.

Morals & Ted Byfield

2005-09-13T11:59:00.000-06:00

Chris Selley has criticized Ted Byfield for referring to an "illegitimate" child ("I say, you there -- boy! What year is this?"), and is being taken to task in the comments for everything from being excessively PC to apologizing for the downfall of civil society. I threw in my two cents, and figured that would be the end of it: mainly because "what Ted Byfield thinks" ranks pretty low amongst my concerns in life.

However, partly because I have some personal experience with this topic, I feel the need to make two points about what I believe is a twisted, fuzzy, and un-Christian view of morality put forth by Byfield and those who would defend his comments.

Firstly, and Selley makes this point in down in the comments, if you're looking to accuse an adult of immoral acts, you're hitting the wrong target:

My only complaint is that Byfield calls Trudeau's daughter "illegitimate". It's pejorative, archaic and unfair, since it's no fault of hers, and it's used simply to make her father look bad (which, in a Catholic context, he deserves).

Colby Cosh replies that "it is still conceptually convenient for us to have an adjective for 'born out of wedlock'..." -- how so? Why? Do we really have a need for a concept, or rather a convenient word, that differentiates a child born to unwed parents from one whose parents divorce when she's six months old, or from one whose parents are married for life? Even if we do, why a pejorative one? A hundred years ago, the bastard/illegitimate tag was most certainly a slur on the child, not merely the parents, and was one that stuck her in a lower class of child. Am I really a PC thug to wish that nonsense away?

There is also a second point here that is just as important, and that is the broad unfairness of stigmatizing, as a whole, parents who have children out of wedlock. I will happily stipulate Christian morality for the purposes of explaining this point.

*****
There is only one immoral act underlying all unmarried parenthood, and that is that the parents had pre-marital (or non-marital, or extra-marital) sex. Putting a further stigma on all women who become pregnant as a result is a strange and unwise thing to do, since you can't make any assumptions about their intent or their precautions.

Once a woman does become pregnant outside of marriage, then certainly the ideal outcome is a prompt marriage where both mother and father plan to lovingly care for their baby-to-be. But often this doesn't happen, and again, it is strange and unwise to further stigmatize those for whom it doesn't.

Perhaps the father becomes physically abusive - surely no one would advise the mother that the moral thing to do is to get married nevertheless. Perhaps the father loudly and clearly proclaims that he has no interest in being a parent, or moves to another country. How could this possibly reflect on the morality of the mother?

The next most moral option has got to be the mother giving birth to the child and caring for her as best she can, seeing as how the remaining alternative is abortion. (Yes, I have skipped over adoption here, but I can't take seriously anyone who believes that it is uniformly more moral, or immoral, for an unwed mother to give her baby up for adoption than to raise her herself).

(In fact, you can plausibly argue that unwed mothers should be assumed to be more moral than women who have had non-marital sex but never become pregnant: the former have proved themselves uninterested in abortion, whereas for the latter, it is mere theory).
*****

In sum, the only assumption of immorality you can safely make about all mothers (or parents) of illegitimate children is that they had sex outside the bounds of holy matrimony. If you are inclined to look down your nose at all such women, go ahead, I suppose.

Which brings up the question: why don't we have a common adjective for "person who has/had sex out of wedlock"? Wouldn't that be especially conceptually convenient, to have a pejorative word that applied to all such people, regardless of the circumstances (or frequency!)? After all, there are a lot more people who fit that description than there are children whose parents weren't married. Surely, any pain resulting from the common use of such a word would be no worse than the broad stigma associated with the act, which is between microscopic and nil. Kathy Shaidle seems to be suggesting "bimbos" in Selley's comments: should we roll with that one?

Again, you (or Ted Byfield) are welcome to criticize Pierre Trudeau's Catholic-ness, or Deborah Coyne's morals. But when Byfield lists off the much younger women PET shagged, then adds "mother of his 15-year-old illegitimate daughter", he clearly believes that this statement on its own is further evidence of Trudeau's immorality. It isn't, and to believe it is betrays a weird and indefensible moral compass. It may be conservative, but it isn't right.

Moe Williams is now my sworn enemy

2005-09-12T12:57:00.000-06:00

Well, that was painful while it lasted. I'm out of this season's NFL Suicide pool, thanks to the inability of the Vikings, particularly Culpepper, to hold on to the GDFH football. My hindsight is focusing up: I still remember that I liked the Vikings (and particularly Culpepper) last season, and that all but one of their first few losses could have easily gone the other way. What looms large, regrettably only now, is that they were 8-8.

My only consolation is that I'm not alone. There's a big $$ pool in my industry here, with 100 entrants, which includes weekly picks and a suicide pick. 43 guys were eliminated from the suicide pool yesterday, which probably could have been more, considering what happened to the 5 biggest favourites yesterday:

PANTHERS (-7) over Saints -- Panthers lose
STEELERS (-7) over Titans -- Steelers win
VIKINGS (-6) vs. Bucs -- Vikings lose
Rams (-5.5) vs. NINERS -- Rams lose
REDSKINS (-5.5) vs. Bears -- Skins win (but don't cover)

The most fascinating/hilarious aspect of yesterday's games, however, was the Mikes. Allow me to have The Sports Guy explain [note - link will rot in a couple weeks]:

The Danny DeVito Award for "Easiest way to realize that something is going to be disappointing before you actually see it."

Ever watch a movie trailer and it looks pretty good, and then you hear the narrator say, "From director Danny DeVito ... " and you immediately change your mind? Same goes for NFL coaches. The four Mikes (Martz, Tice, Holmgren and Sherman) will always be outmatched by a good coach. Any team with Dom Capers or Norv Turner at the helm will underachieve. Herm Edwards' teams will always screw up at the end of games. Mike Shanahan's teams will always be 7-6 with three games remaining in the season (and everyone saying, "Those guys should be 10-3!"). Joe Gibbs was away from the game so long that it's sad to watch. Writers will keep making excuses for Steve Mariucci and Marvin Lewis even as their teams keep underachieving. Marty Schottenheimer will always tighten up in the playoffs. And Danny DeVito will always direct crappy movies.

If you include Mike Shanahan along with "the four Mikes" Simmons lists in the brackets, we have five Mikes of, shall we say, questionable coaching acumen. (There's a 6th, but since the 49ers' Mike Nolan is in his first year, he gets a pass). Yesterday, three Mikes were favoured by more than a field goal, and Sherman and Holmgren were both 3-point underdogs.

All five Mikes lost. None of the five covered the spread. In fact, none of the five even came within a touchdown of covering - the closest was the Rams, who were favoured by 5.5 and lost by 3, an 8.5 point difference (the worst being the Broncos, coming up a mere 28 points short of covering).

Let it be known that I will never again discount the Mike factor when making a NFL wager. And it Danny DeVito's defense, I quite liked Matilda.

NFL Survivor Pool 2005

2005-09-10T17:30:00.000-06:00

Last year, I barely made it through Week 1, and bombed out in Week 2, when the Bears won by 10 (14?) in Green Bay.

Back on the horse! This week's Shoe-In, Lock of the Week Loser is Tampa Bay (+6.5 @ Vikings). I'm not actually that high on the Vikings this year, but I always like them at home.

(Of course, I also seem to remember them losing an opening week home game to Carolina 3 or 4 seasons ago -- Carolina proceeded to lose their last 15 games of the year.)

And no matter what happens, the football weekend will be a net positive. If the Stamps can pick up one game in the standings on the Esks over the next six, then the rubber match on the final weekend of the season will be for 2nd place (unless the GoRiders win out - heh).

The Stamps have remaining games with Hamilton (x2), Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and the GoRiders before the finale.
The Capital Region Indiginous Persons play the GoRiders twice, undefeated B.C. twice, Hamilton, and Toronto before the finale.

Did I mention the finale is in Calgary? Yes, I want this to happen.

Surrender

2005-09-08T14:27:00.000-06:00

I think this will be the last thing I post about Katrina. For starters, I no longer trust any of the information out there. Furthermore, reports have catalogued such a variety of failures that there is something there to confirm just about everyone's bias, so I seriously doubt any observers will actually look at the world differently now (i.e. learn any lessons).

The biggest argument that has not been made, at least not at all persuasively, is that a lack of resources contributed to the tragedy (exception that proves the rule: the lack of a trillion-dollar 50-foot high levee system). I hope citizens keep this in mind in the months ahead. I fully expect that the incompetence of individuals within government, and various rules and procedures, will end up bearing most of the blame, rather than the institution itself. I think that's wrong, but again, I have no illusions that I'll change anyone's mind.

Taking the cake for bizarre non-sequiturs, though, has got to be the op-ed in today's WSJ by Rep. Bobby Jindal (R-La.). It was cited approvingly by Rich Lowry at The Corner and by Instapundit; I'm utterly confused.

In short, he goes through a handful of anecdotes about how bureaucracy failed thus far, and how private interests filled the void. Great, but then he drops this:

That's why we need, in the future, a single, strong leader with the power to override the normal process restrictions and get things done. That individual must be identified from the very beginning.

Wha? Does anyone reading this have the foggiest idea what he's proposing? That's not a rhetorical question - what is he talking about? There's that guy, George whatsisname, whose job relates to being a single strong leader. Is Jindal suggesting he doesn't have enough power right now? Even if he's arguing that "federalism doesn't work" without using those words: is he really suggesting that the reason the disaster response failed in various ways is that the authorities didn't have enough authority? In the immortal words of John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious!" Furthermore, if the "normal process restrictions" need to be overridden in a crisis, why do they exist at all? We're talking about FEMA, the military, National Guard, and the police here: do they really labour under reams of regulations designed for non-crisis times?

Here's the second half of the paragraph excerpted above:

But below that person, other individuals up and down the line need to know they can make obvious and sensible calls in an emergency.

I weep for the future when a guy who, by many accounts, is one of the brightest young people in politics somehow thinks that the two halves of that paragraph complement each other. Mr. Jindal, if you really want things to work better next time, use that paragraph as your guiding principle. Just delete everything before the word "individuals", and the words "up and down the line", and you've got yourself a good start. At least we won't hear about things like the Salvation Army being barred from evacuating their own care centre.

Attempt at parody falls short

2005-09-08T09:30:00.000-06:00

Onion Headline: Officials Uncertain Whether To Save Or Shoot Victims

California paramedics:

Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Their account is absolutely horrifying. And anyone who thinks that governments' failures in the wake of Katrina are attributable to the incompetency of select individuals, or their bloody party affiliation, is a straight-up moron. Perry de Havilland:

We have heard accounts by authorities of crazed looters inexplicably shooting at contractors who were just trying to repair essential infrastructure. You know what? Maybe that is what happened and maybe not. I find myself thinking the official version of a great deal of what went on is far from the truth.

What? Nooo!!! Worldview...crumbling...

UPDATE: See Perry's addendum in the comments:

Oh I agree that final judgement should be reserved until we know for sure if this story is true. Moreover it may be 'true' in crude terms but a misrepresentation of why these things happened. That is why I wrote "Unless this account proves to be a hoax or a gross misrepresentation of what happened..."

It is always important to retain a critical eye.

But that said, to turn things around, please do not just assume it is not true just because it is displeasing to think public 'servants' would behave that way.

Either way I would like this story to get aired so that either it is debunked (which frankly I would prefer as I hate to think that is really what happened) or it is confirmed and some serious repercussions occur as a result.

If the people who wrote it are in fact socialists, I must say there is a certain sweet irony to it, seeing as the laudable actions and spontaneous order about which they wrote are pure non-coerced 'civil society' at work and the malevolent hand of the state is very mechanism they advocate as the solution to the world's woes.

UPDATE2: Some corroboration. (ÞFlit)

If a sparrow falls

2005-09-08T09:10:00.000-06:00

The sentence structure is awkward as hell, but Rand Simberg's illustration here sums up my general problem with the national parties of the "right" on this continent (ÞSteyn):

...to the degree that this has been a PR disaster for the administration, it (unlike all of the other things, like Global Warming, and Racism in Amerikkka, and lousy movies out of Hollywood, and French disdain for us, and the hurricane itself) really is Bush's fault.

Why? Because he's not only done nothing to discourage the notion that the federal government should see every sparrow that falls, and immediately call in an air strike of a soft net upon which it can plummet, nurses at the ready, and grief counselors for the potentially bereaved sparrow family, even before it hits the ground, he's actively encouraged it...

Majors

2005-09-07T23:30:00.000-06:00

Golf -- different people favour the Masters, the U.S. Open, and the British Open; as the best-slash-truest test of game, and also as the most entertaining. I say fair enough.

But tennis -- I simply cannot understand how anyone, at least in the last 15 years, could argue that any tournament other than the U.S. Open is #1, by any criteria. Wimbledon is a serving contest, the Australian is in January, and the French is played on a weird surface (have you ever done anything on clay?).

The 10 best tennis matches I've ever seen (or parts thereof) have all been part of the U.S. Open. My favorite is the '95 Final between Sampras and Agassi, but the latest addition to the list is tonight's match between Agassi and James Blake.

3-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6).

It was one of those sports moments where you're not watching at first; you start clicking to it more and more frequently; and suddenly, you're captivated, and it turns out to be an enduring moment in the sport. It's happened to me maybe a dozen times; after thinking about it for awhile, it may turn out to be another post.

How stupid?

2005-09-07T22:43:00.000-06:00

Please see this post, and comments, and the post linked therein, for more highly intelligent and civilized discussion by Sacamano and Mapmaster about the lessons of Katrina.

A must read for anyone interested in the whole disaster discussion is this Reason piece by Jesse Walker. Fantastic, and unexpectedly, uplifting.

Non-Katrina point: this is why I'm glad I have confidence in the Flames coach. Check out this quote from Angels superfan and blogger Rev. Halo (ÞWelch):

If you are Mike Scioscia's daughter, stay out on prom night and tell dad you were at church - tonight's game proves he is stupid enough to believe you.

Aw, come on...

2005-09-06T15:15:00.000-06:00

I realize Larry King's program is "talk", not "news", but jeez.

I may miss it tonight, I think I'll be doing my hair:

...

I'm guessing four double paralyzers

2005-09-06T12:36:00.000-06:00

OK, so the guys at Powerline don't get 100,000 hits a day because they're stingy with their praise for President Bush, but how many drinks did Hinderaker have at Happy Hour on Friday to get the balls to post something like this?

The City of New Orleans and its residents owe the President a profound debt of gratitude.

If possible, I think the post is even more obnoxious as a whole.

Everyone's seen this story...

2005-09-06T12:25:00.000-06:00

...but here's the funniest take:

I'm positive that Sean Penn's heart was filled with care bears and his only desire was to help - why else would you bring your personal photographer - but since he's an idiot actor with no experience in the physical world, he was of course completely overwhelmed within seconds. It would be like if you stepped into a batting cage and I threw 10,000 balls at you all at once. And also some poisoned throwing stars and a hungry tiger. I actually did more to help than he did just by sitting here and watching the 24 marathon on A&E. At least I didn't waste a bunch of gas and food and water

"I hope that lesson is not lost on anyone.."

2005-09-06T12:12:00.000-06:00

It's nearly impossible, and bloody infuriating, to keep a handle on the myriad government failures pertaining to Katrina. The Agitator has been trying (sample: "The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows.").

He also points to this quote at Catallarchy:

Rarely has it been so clear how much we, the ordinary people of this country, are better than our rulers. I hope that lesson is not lost on anyone, of any political persuasion. We are better than them and there is no good reason anymore – if ever there was – to keep on putting up with their lies.

Which gets me back to where I was on Friday, I suppose. I had a bit of a debate with Sacamano at this post (& in the comments) regarding whether we, as citizens, are still free to organize to help out our neighbours, distinct from whatever efforts the government is undertaking. Over the weekend, more news came out that would certainly seem to bolster my position (basically, that government management is actively excluding independent collective action). There was the news that the Red Cross was barred from New Orleans. Even more stark, this:

"We've tried desperately to rescue 250 people trapped in a Salvation Army facility. They've been trapped in there since the flood came in. Many are on dialysis machines," said Maj. George Hood, national communications secretary for the relief organization.

"Yesterday we rented big fan boats to pull them out and the National Guard would not let us enter the city," he said. The reason: a new plan to evacuate the embattled city grid by grid - and the Salvation Army's facility didn't fall in the right grid that day, Hood said in a telephone interview from Jackson, Miss.

"No, it doesn't make sense," he said.

Not so much, no. This old Reason piece by Glenn Garvin has been linked here and there: it's a debriefing of the Hurricane Andrew recovery, but also serves as a handy program to follow along with (ahead of) what's going on now:

Unbelievably, they began broadcasting appeals for everyone to stay away from the hurricane zone; disorganization, rather than hunger or thirst or illness or misery, became Public Enemy No. 1. Better that the battered residents of Florida City swelter in 95-degree heat without ice than suffer the indignity of disorganized ice.

Heaven forfend. At any rate, I'll try to make my central plea again:

Over the weeks and months ahead, we the people will be receiving various assurances that our own local, provincial/state, and federal jurisdictions are prepared to deal with disaster. There will be plans, committees, etc. to assure us that things will go as smoothly as humanly possible when the shit (or where I live, the snow) hits the fan.

It is simply not enough for us to say "Whatever", make that blah-blah motion with our hands, and go about preparing ourselves and our own families for the big one.

We need to insist that our leaders concede that they cannot be prepared for everything, and that even the best plan cannot be comprehensive. We need to insist that our leaders concede that government is but one element of the reaction, relief, and recovery required in a disaster, and correspondingly, that the citizens of our civil society will need to help each other. Above all, we need to insist that our leaders concede that government is not the solution to every problem, and that they start acknowledging that this is reality, and not a mere consequence of finite government resources.

Civil society is not some bothersome thing that gets in the way of effective government management. I'll close with Julian Sanchez:

..for pretty much everyone short of the anarchists, preventing the collapse of civilization into a huge Hobbesian clusterfuck makes the list — whether yours is short or long — of things governments are supposed to do...

Indeed. But past arresting the bad guys and other specific collapse-prevention activities, it's time to start giving we the people a lot more credit for our capacity for good.

Teachable moments indeed

2005-09-03T23:50:00.000-06:00

Good advice/analysis from Evan Kirchhoff on Friday night. The last of the following excerpts might be controversial; I find it intuitively obvious, and probably a good topic for a future post. Anyway, One:

Your mileage may vary, but the phrase "place my life in their hands" is not the first thing I associate with "San Francisco city councillor". It probably can't be stated too often that you need more food and water in your house than you likely have right now.

Two:

I believe, to the same degree that I did last week, that it's mostly a good thing that the President can't immediately and unilaterally pour large numbers of machine-gun-toting troops into the center of my city. I would think that people who attribute actual malice to the federal government, as opposed to just stock levels of institutional semi-competence, would be a whole lot less willing than I am to argue for such powers.

and Three:

I also hope this disaster has underlined the importance of private vehicle ownership; even a bicycle seems like it would be infinitely better than nothing. I support public transportation as a subsidy to people who can't drive for economic or physical reasons, and as a necessary method of getting an extra million daily office workers into the cores of the old, dense cities I prefer to live in for aesthetic reasons. But the notion that a middle-class person riding a bus or train embodies some additional civic virtue -- that we should, as this city's government keeps suggesting, actually close some downtown streets and impose London-style tolls and eliminate parkades to reduce the number of cars in the city, making tens of thousands of additional people into de facto wards of the state -- embodies an appalling contempt for individual lives.

To channel the Instapundit: "Balance is required, but let's hope this point is noted in the weeks and months ahead."

"It will take a miracle"

2005-09-02T15:31:00.000-06:00

Bruce Gottfred has noted a grim assessment of the mid- and long-term outlook for New Orleans. Oh, boy:

...to anticipate what the city must go through now, after damming up its broken levees and pumping the floodwaters back into Lake Pontchartrain, is heartbreaking.

If you don't find it heartbreaking, I suppose one thing you could do is use the occasion, for the 450th time, to remind people that you have no sympathy for the poor. Hey, we all have our cherished concepts that we like to beat like a cheap drum at possibly insensitive times - see below. But the forceful lack of compassion demonstrated here is, to me, astonishing:

The National Guard didn't react quickly enough? Gee, I dunno, I guess most of us figured that normal people could control their impulses adequately, could do simple things like stay calm, line up and so forth, until help arrived. Maybe they'd, oh, I dunno, help each other as best they could.

What the fuck does she think normal people were doing? I've watched a fair bit of coverage, and I've seen pictures of a few hundred people looting, and tens of thousands hiding from the sun on sidewalks and highways.

Shaidle seems to believe that people getting off the bus at the Astrodome, after living through several days of violent disorder amongst human waste, should be saying something like, "I feel guilty that I didn't leave before the storm, I apologize to y'all for putting you through this trouble, thank you." Oh, and that these people are who she'd see in 10-second clips on CNN.

If Kathy Shaidle doesn't like being accused of racism, my suggestion is to be a lot more careful about the behaviour and attitudes she's attributing without cause to the "normal people" being evacuated from New Orleans. It's also baffling that she would go on a rant like this, at a time like this, when anyone with an ounce of human relations sense could tell you that, like yelling at a waitress, it reflects more on the ranter than the subject. Just keepin' it real, I guess.

Disaster and response

2005-09-02T14:39:00.000-06:00

Bruce Ralston has posted a characteristically intelligent and bloodless look at two basic magnitudes of disasters, and the requirements, if possible, for response:

In the model I'm stipulating, first-order disasters, for the majority of those affected, are basically about the disruption of essential services: food, water, power. Examples would be the Canadian ice storm of 1999, or the major power outage of two years ago. These rarely seem to result, in Western countries, in extensive vandalism or the loss of social order.

Second-order disasters, as we're seeing in New Orleans, see the outright and rapid destruction of vast swathes of personal property and capital, with the resulting side effects of wage loss, personal mobility, etc: the main natural causes of these today are hurricanes, seismic/volcanic activity, or riverine flooding. If this kind of disaster affects the greater part of an urban area, it seems very difficult for even a fully Western society to keep order for long with local resources.

Interesting stuff, read it all. I think that his model should probably have three orders, though, simply because the other Gulfcoast areas affected clearly qualify as a 2nd-order disaster by his definition, and New Orleans is another problem altogether (at least when you're talking about loss of order). That may be attributable, at least partly, to all sorts of things, including the pre-existing order in New Orleans. However, it would also seem that "flood that doesn't recede all the way" is a special kind of disaster, with specific challenges that aren't scaleable from "smaller" disasters.

Wow

2005-09-02T13:58:00.000-06:00

I honestly don't know what to make of this:

CNN's Barbara Starr, who is traveling with the three-star general, said Honore is "very determined to keep this looking like a humanitarian relief operation."

"A few moments ago, he stopped a truck full of National Guard troops ... and said, 'Point your weapons down, this is not Iraq,'" Starr reported.

From the exact same story:

One New Orleans police sergeant compared the situation to Somalia and said officers were outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks.

"It's a war zone, and they're not treating it like one," he said, referring to the federal government.

Obviously, I hope it's the general who has it right.

Same as it ever was

2005-09-02T11:50:00.000-06:00

Paste this bit from Jay Jardine on your fridge, since you're unlikely to hear it from anyone in authority as of, now-ish:

Count On The System To Fail

Always seemed a pretty good operational assumption to me -- now confirmed by the post-Katrina horrors.

I don't know how exactly that will improve my survival response when The Big One shakes the Lower Mainland to pieces one day, but this much is clear: no government, army or police force-- no matter how well funded or adequately stuffed with bureaubots these things are -- have any magical powers to bail your ass out when things really take a turn for the worse.

It's up to you -- same as it ever was.

I'd say this is half of the lesson of post-Katrina New Orleans. The other half is that citizens can not allow our governments to claim that this isn't true. The solution is not better and more expensive planning, ceding more responsibility to the powers-that-be to deal to protect us from every possible horror. We need to insist on more freedom, both as individuals and in voluntary associations, to protect ourselves and rescue our neighbours when the worst happens.

On a related note (and this may be a classic test for confirmation bias): Toronto Mayor David Miller mused a couple of weeks ago that law-abiding gun owners should be forced to store their firearms in a central depot. I wonder if Torontonians are more, or less, enthusiastic about this idea after watching TV the past few days?

Markets in everything?

2005-09-01T19:02:00.000-06:00

From CNN.com:

Government officials insisted they were putting forth their best efforts and pleaded for patience, saying further help was on the way.

I swear that this is a desperate suggestion, not an attempt to make a political point, but:

The government's best efforts, to this point, are not getting New Orleans evacuated. What if W, or the governor, got on TV and and announced that anyone with available, ventilated transportation would be paid $500 for every person they evacuated from the city? Pick 3 checkpoints 20 or 40 miles outside the city, and let the charities or whoever take over from there.

I suspect there would be trucking companies cutting windows in their trailers with axes toute suite and hiring people to ride shotgun, in the original literal sense. I also suspect there would be fraud, abuse, and other horrible unintended consequences, including some people being shot indiscriminately. But weighed against the status quo, which appears to be thousands of people starving, dehydrating, and dying in the streets of New Orleans while patience is requested, I think the "lack of organization" inherent in such a plan doesn't look so bad. If there's going to be anarchy, let's have lives saved, instead of lost, as a consequence.

"a city that, for all relevant purposes, is now gone"

2005-09-01T11:59:00.000-06:00

An hour ago I was planning on posting something about the recovery & reconstruction of New Orleans, and how the logistical challenges will probably be better compared with railroad and canal construction than (say) the Hurricane Andrew cleanup.

Then I turned on CNN for half an hour, and it's pretty clear that at the moment, those challenges are minor and/or irrelevant compared to the logistical challenge of what amounts to a massive refugee crisis on our own continent.

I'll be fascinated to see how New Orleans is drained and decontaminated, and also how America will absorb roughly a million people of wildly varying needs (and employability). But at the moment, I'm really just hoping those babies get some milk.

You can donate to the Canadian Red Cross here; my family certainly will be.

Yes, that is out of 100

2005-08-27T23:02:00.000-06:00

And Yes, I list my occupation as "electrical engineer".

But I've thought about this for awhile, and decided I shouldn't be ashamed of this:

Tough quiz.

Plenty?

2005-08-27T09:50:00.000-06:00

Fair warning, if you choose to click on this link:

The subject matter, while a true story, pertains to deviant sexual behaviour
Also gross
I have no idea what you find if you click on the hyperlinks within the post, but I suspect they won't work from a public library

The payoff if you DO click through, among other things, is that Treacher concludes with the funniest pun I've read in ages.

Hello out there, we're on the air,

2005-08-26T15:28:00.000-06:00

Some quick hockeyblogging:

- It looks like I'm surprisingly alone, among non-Senators fans anyway, in believing that Ottawa improved by getting Heatley for Hossa, regardless of cap considerations.

I gladly confess that I haven't watched a lot of non-Flames hockey in the past few years. However, watching Heatley in game action, I've had this rough thought a few times: "Geez, this guy could win a few Hart Trophies." As good as Hossa is with the puck, I've never had that same thought about him.

- Oilers fans are excited. They should be. But I'm telling you, Mike Peca is not a $4M player. I'm not even sure that he's a $2M player anymore. He's going to be the most ragged-on man in Edmonton by the end of January.

The Pronger pickup was great, although a 6-year contract is too long for anyone in a salary cap NHL, IMO. The Juicy/Conklin goaltending tandem should work out fine. I think C-Mac is a bit of a weak coach, but I expect the Oil to be pretty good this year. (Sidebar - check this fantastic quote from the EdSun's Robin Brownlee, aimed at Flames triumphalism (Þsacamano)):

Remember, fortunes can change in a hurry. Think of it this way - before the spring of 2004, most of the young ladies flashing their breasts on the Red Mile had none the last time the Flames made the playoffs.

- I'm a little surprised there hasn't been more (any?) restricted free agents signing with new teams. I expect this to change next offseason. Because there is less incentive to develop young players now (both the lower UFA age and the higher minimum salary), paying draft picks as compensation is much less unattractive than it used to be. As soon as more GMs get the hang of this new system, RFAs, especially those on teams with cap problems, will become mighty ripe targets.

- The Flames should be favoured to win the Western Conference. I hope they play up to expectations. They have who I consider to be the best player and the best coach in the league. They earned everything they won last year. They have players back from injury, and they signed Amonte, McCarty, and Hamrlik as free agents. And I don't see that any other team in the West has improved themselves to a degree where we ought to expect them to be better than Calgary.

- Leafs fans take heart: even if they're bad this year (which I doubt, but would give me a nice warm feeling inside), they're in great shape next offseason to pick up some serious talent. It's basically a winning organization, and that doesn't disappear in a puff of smoke.

Looking forward to the Flames-Senators Cup Final. Woo-hoooooo!

I will never have the balls to do this

2005-08-25T11:59:00.000-06:00

The concluding sentence of The Ambler's revamped bio:

When not engaged in enraging the bien pensants of all parties, KMG enjoys gossip, reading, smoking, listening to music, watching sports and getting drunk.

It's probably good that he's comfortable describing himself as "un(der)employed", and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Not sure whether to laugh or cry

2005-08-25T10:56:00.000-06:00

A choice quote via Kate from our Prime Minister, speaking in Regina:

"Let Alberta be a beacon for the best and brightest on the condition that the rest of Canada is as well".

On the condition that? I feel sick.

"Certainly worth the [fornicating] wait!"

2005-08-24T20:53:00.000-06:00

That's Matt Welch's 5-word movie review of "The 40 Year Old Virgin", which I had the pleasure of checking out Saturday night with Mrs. Aldini, my sister, and her boyfriend.

I stink at reviews, so I'll mainly say that I broadly agree with what Roger Ebert says:

Here's a movie that could have had the same title and been a crude sex comedy with contempt for its characters. Instead, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" is surprisingly insightful, as buddy comedies go, and it has a good heart and a lovable hero.

Absolutely. If I'd dispute anything in his review, it's his contention that "the best reason the movie works" is because of the chemistry between Steve Carell and Catherine Keener (his girlfriend who is confused why he doesn't harass her for sex, the true reason never crossing her mind).

They do have great chemistry, and the Keener scenes are great. But the best reason the movie works is because of the chemistry between Carell and his three male coworkers at the electronics store. The casting is awesome, the dialogue is hilarious, and despite the fact that their advice is occasionally horrendous, you never, ever doubt that all 3 of them genuinely like the Virgin and are trying to help.

When you leave a movie thinking that it looks like it would be fun to work in a Best Buy, you know they had you pretty good.

Recommendation: definitely.

Carnival of the Reason writers

2005-08-22T11:05:00.000-06:00

Great stuff at Hit & Run this morning:

Michael Young, in a WSJ Op-Ed, has an original take on the Iraq war & the Middle East. It's tough to summarize (please RTWT), but he's basically saying that liberal-minded Arabs should be asserting their self-interest a lot more effectively than they are:

From the Arab side, encouragement of a democratic Iraq, and its fulfillment, would have proved the viability of an Arab democracy, denting Israel's presumption that it is the "only democracy in the Middle East." By becoming a dominant cornerstone of U.S. policy, Iraq would have relativized Israel's paramountcy; and a truly representative Iraq would have highlighted Israel's denial of Palestinian representativeness in the occupied territories. For all these reasons, American achievement in Iraq could have been looked on with greater self-interested approval and imagination by the Arab publics. It never was.

[...] By refusing to profit from the prospective democratic upheaval that Saddam's removal ushered in; by never looking beyond the American messenger in Iraq to the message itself; by lamenting external hegemony while doing nothing to render it pointless, Arabs merely affirmed their impotence. The self-pitying Arab reaction to the Iraq war showed the terrible sway of the status quo in the Middle East. An inability to marshal change for one's benefit is the stuff of captive minds.

Not exactly a feel-good story, but a fascinating perspective.

Still on Iraq, Nick Gillespie notes the stern words of Republican and unimpeachably right-wing Senator Chuck Hagel's ("we're not winning"), and has this to say:

Whatever else you can say about Iraq, this much seems inarguable: The Bush administration has failed to define the parameters of success there in any really convincing way. And whatever the successes of the occupation may be, they've done a piss-poor job of making clear a) what they are and b) precisely what level of American sacrifice is both required and acceptable.

Inarguable indeed - this failure can not be schlepped off on the ol' MSM.

And on a much, much lighter note, Julian Sanchez informs us that Hunter S. Thompson's ashes were shot off in fireworks on Saturday night. Click through for the funniest post header you'll read this week.

Bwaaa-hahahahahaha

2005-08-19T13:35:00.000-06:00

If we're going to use NASA engineers to prove "the existence of a generation which can communicate only in point form", then perhaps we can use this Chicago Tribune op-ed as evidence that we have a generation of doctors with no freaking sense whatsover:

As an internist caring for more and more morbidly obese people, I am so tired of reading about the feeble attempts of the government and the food industry to address the epidemic of obesity. The only effective way that we will attack this epidemic is for the surgeon general to mandate that, effective immediately, all portions of food served in restaurants and fast-food places be cut by one-half to two- thirds.

[...]

Cutting portions in fast-food places and restaurants is the only solution. I know it is a novel idea, but we have to do something radical soon to reverse this trend.
[Balko's emphasis]

I know the term gets tossed around pretty casually, but I really think this guy is, well, an idiot:

Meals in American restaurants and fast-food places are very inexpensive by international standards. The proprietors could continue to charge the same price for a smaller portion and I guarantee their sales would not decrease.

Sure, because no one eats out because they're pleased with what they're being served for the price they're paying, they eat out because it's become "the way of life". Also, any customers they lose because of the smaller portions will be balanced out by new customers, attracted by the... OK, maybe it doesn't make that much sense.

He also seems very confused about his role in his patients' lives, or at least is unwilling to communicate it to them:

Patients are often upset that I target their obesity as the cause of the problem. Overeating is "their right" and I, as their doctor, should fix the problem.

I don't know what they teach in medical school, but shouldn't he be telling these patients something like this: "Look fatty, if you want to solve most of your problems, stop eating so damn much. That is my considered medical opinion. I'm prescribing a treatment that will save you money, not cost you any. If you don't like it, keel over and die in 5 years. I'm not your mom, your wife, or your keeper - I'm a doctor."

But it appears he believes I'm missing the point:

Other patients are frustrated by their inability to lose weight and maintain the loss because they live in a virtual candy store. Everyday life in America is just too tempting to adhere to a diet for any length of time.

There's your problem with America, right there: "too tempting".

"Nothwithstanding my real indifference.."

2005-08-18T15:34:00.000-06:00

Best reaction I've read to the new GuvGen's 3-paragraph statement comes from Mapmaster:

I did note with interest Jean's appropriation of Paul Martin speech peccadilloes today in the National Post:

"Let me be clear: we have never belonged to a political party or the separatist movement."

the iteration of "let me be clear" in Canadian political idiom suggesting a proportionately inverse qualification of the amount of useful information to be conveyed in the subsequent disclaimer.

Indeed!

Slaves to PowerPoint?

2005-08-18T12:39:00.000-06:00

Colby Cosh has been sifting through the debriefing from the space shuttle's Return To Flight, and highlights a serious problem (Cosh's emphasis):

...many of the engineering packages brought before formal control boards were documented only in PowerPoint presentations. In some instances, requirements are defined in presentations, approved with a cover letter, and never transferred to formal documentation. Similarly, in many instances when data was requested by the Task Group, a PowerPoint presentation would be delivered without supporting engineering documentation. It appears that many young engineers do not understand the need for, or know how to prepare, formal engineering documents such as reports, white papers, or analyses.

(Final Report of the Return to Flight Task Force, p.190 (.pdf))

I have no reason to disbelieve this, nor do I wish to defend the work of engineering schools. However, Cosh characterizes the problem incorrectly here:

...the minority report comes awfully close, in my eyes, to concluding that the problem is inherently incorrigible within the limits of professional training for American engineers.

It's certainly possible that in the nine years since I graduated, engineering schools have replaced the technical writing course with a PowerPoint course, although this is clearly not incorrigible, inherently or otherwise. Also, I'm only 32, but I and most of my peers graduated without using any Windows-based software at all, so most working engineers were never taught that PowerPoint was a critical, let alone exclusive, tool for technical communication.

More to the point, though, the excessive and inappropriate use of PowerPoint is an issue of NASA organizational behaviour, not of the training of engineers. To believe otherwise, you have to believe that NASA has somehow overhauled their previously rigorous internal technical controls to suit the reduced competency of their newly-graduated engineers.

Much more plausible, I think, is that PP presentations are what is demanded by NASA senior management, presumably to ease communications with their non-scientific (i.e. political) masters.

Engineers, and everyone else save for maybe doctors, graduate from school having accumulated certain knowledge and skills. They then get a job, and 80% of this knowledge and these skills are basically useless in perpetuity. Maybe 5% is immediately and directly applicable to their job description, and 15% forms a rudimentary base for further learning and skills refinement. To put it another way, new graduates starting their first job don't know anything, regardless of whether they were a great student, or well-taught, or whatever.

Perhaps, as Cosh suggests, there is simply not enough engineers with both strong technical chops and the ability to communicate it soundly on paper. If so, the only sane way to deal with this is to scrap the space program entirely: if you can't learn to be a competent aerospace engineer working for NASA, there is no school in the world that can help you.

"Won't someone PLEASE think of the children!"

2005-08-18T10:49:00.000-06:00

I have to agree with Julian Sanchez here: I think I'd just about orgasm at the thrill of watching various healthists and Our Betters In Government try to address the importation of Kidsbeer from Japan. Indeed, this rhetoric sounds downright foreign:

Satoshi Tomoda, president of the beverage maker, said: "Children copy and mimic adults.

"If you get this drink ready on such occasions as events and celebrations attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."

The Kidsbeer label captures a nostalgic mood as it was modeled after classic beer labels.

"Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads the product's advertising slogan.

Wheeeeeee!

Jan Harder: Hero

2005-08-17T23:42:00.000-06:00

Via Bound By Gravity, I find this update on how the Mardi Gras promotion is going at Ottawa Renegades games, as reported by the in-famous Earl Mcrae:

It's on the cusp of all-out war: The City of Ottawa versus Cuddles Glieberman versus the City of Ottawa.

Back down, the city has told Cuddles.

No way, Cuddles has told the city.

Cuddles says the city has no right in the brassieres of the fans.

An enraged city councillor Jan Harder: "Lonie Glieberman's an arrogant little bitch. I'm not willing to tolerate it. If he won't end it, I will."

Cuddles, aka Lonie, is a boy by-the-way. I see Councillor Harder is using some obvious horseshit to bolster her point:

"I've had a number of complaints to my office from parents whose daughters have been harassed -- 'c'mon take it off, show us your boobs' -- and the girls don't know what they're talking about. He's a classless twit. If he thinks he's got a winning football team, then sell that."

Well, I guess zero and one both qualify as "a number", right? Seriously folks, read the article, just to visualize the multiple meetings most certainly already undertaken by City and Lansdowne Park officials ("Is this the kind of image we want to create for our community?", oh for F... ...).

I also liked this snippet:

"The perception of Mardi Gras -- New Orleans style -- is one where lewd behaviour and booze prevail. This is not a good mix in a sports environment, in our opinion." - Richard Hancock. Lansdowne Park manager

Two words: O-K-BUDDY! That must be why the NFL keeps the Super Bowl away from New Orleans at all costs, why there's never been a Final Four there, etc. etc...

Expoundment from the unworthy

2005-08-17T22:34:00.000-06:00

Obviously, I'm having a little trouble getting going again here. I've read lots of good stuff over the past week, but it hasn't translated into prolific and clever web-logging.

There is something to be said for the power of momentum, though, so I think it's wise to just start.

I hope you all read Billy Beck, and I really don't care if the fascination is intellectual or morbid. Two recent posts are worth noting. One:

You know the old saw about "is the glass half-full or half-empty"? It kills me to watch people batting that thing around as if they hold some truth for the ages in their little front-porch rocking-chair philosophy. It never occurs to them to consider that it turns on the matter of whether one is pouring or drinking.

And two:

"I never liked any of you sonsofbitches, but I always wished I could have."

I'm back, at least physically...

2005-08-15T23:17:00.000-06:00

The Aldini clan is back from a delightful trip to Vancouver Island, complete with westbound stops along the Trans-Canada, and eastbound stops along parts of the North Cascades Highway, Grand Coulee, and Spokane.

I may choose to bore you with more details (and photos!) another day. For now, I would like to thank a couple of fellow web-based commentators for a fun meet-up a couple of Fridays ago.

The family and I were laid over in Vancouver for a couple of nights until a Saturday afternoon ferry. (Sidebar: what a tremendous first impression of Vancouver for a first-time visitor (by car) to Vancouver like Mrs. Aldini. East Hastings Street ("it's dirty and sad, but not dangerous") is the route between the #1 WB and downtown. Charming.)

Anyway, it so happened the Calgary Stampeders were playing the B.C. Lions on the Friday night, so I met up for beers and football with the tremendously genial J. Jardine and the now-much-less-mysterious Mapmaster, and a good time was had by me.

We had good laffs at the B.C. Place crowd: in short, at least from our endzone perspective, it was the polar opposite of the stereotype of left-coast hippie stoners. Basically a lot of booze, hooting, skin, and skank. Absolutely awesome. You almost could have confused them for an enthusiatic American crowd-- except that the upper deck was closed off, and the PA announcer had to tell them when to cheer for the defense.

Refreshments before and after were at the Yaletown Brewing Co., where the beer was tasty, and our 4th chair was politely borrowed by future hall-of-fame That Guy this guy.

Far-from-intense discussions were had of current events and weblogging. Many of you other bloggers out there are the source of inspiration and bouts of critical thinking. Many more of you are laughed at mercilessly. :)

Thanks lads - I hope to do it again sometime.

Funny Because It Wasn't Me dept.

2005-08-15T22:19:00.000-06:00

[...] So, what else could I do but steal my own car. I pop the trunk and am shocked that the alarm doesn't go off. Terrific! Maybe I'm mistaken and the alarm isn't really on. I throw in the suitcase, slam the trunk and walk around to the driver's door. Still no alarm.

But, as soon as I turn the key in the lock all hell breaks loose. The lights start flashing, the bells are ringing, the horn is honking - you name it, this alarm does it...except, apparently, prevent you from driving!

It gets better.

Vacation

2005-07-26T10:45:00.000-06:00

See you in a couple weeks, few thousand km, and several dozen beer.

"Who's the grumpy guy in the photos?"

2005-07-26T10:41:00.000-06:00

"He's a JP who hates gays, but we made him perform our ceremony anyway to keep his job, after we threatened human rights action. Good times!"

Good one Ginna.

Aldini Official Prediction: 20-team NHL Playoffs in '06/'07

2005-07-24T08:53:00.000-06:00

[Updated]

[Note: this post is not a long complaint, for a change. It's merely interesting.]

As part of Colby Cosh's initial pass at the "New NHL" on Saturday, he laments the continued existence of the "3-point game". Since the NHL went to 4-on-4 OT, the losing team has been awarded one point, same as a tie. The intent was to encourage wide open play and excitement in the OT; whether it has achieved its purpose, and whether the unintended consequences of the 3-point policy have been damaging, is another argument for another day.

What is not arguable is that any problem you would care to associate with the 3-point game, will be much, much worse next year.

There are 30 NHL teams who each play 82 games

If every game were worth 2 points, there would be:
2460 points awarded in the standings every season
Avg. number of points per team would be 82.0

OK, so what about last season, as the most recent example?

A total of 2605 points were awarded in the standings
The "extra" 145 points corresponds exactly to the total of 145 OT losses between the 30 teams
Avg. number of points per team was 86.8

So one of the effects of the 3-point game policy, for the '03/'04 season, was that the mean team had 87 points, or put another way, was about 5 games above .500.

Attentive fans should not be surprised to read this. The median team in each 15-team conference is team #8, aka the last team in the playoffs. This team has generally had 90+ points over the past several years. The mathematical cause of this is that the bottom 5 teams in the conference are generally further below the mean than the top 5 teams are above the mean; I have no good argument for the actual cause.

Anyway, in the 2005/06 season, there will be no ties. What that means in terms of this discussion is that every game tied at the end of regulation will be a 3-point game.

In 03/04, there were 170 tie games, where 340 points were awarded in the standings, one to each tied team. This upcoming season would award 510 points for these same 170 games, because someone is going to win.

170 new points out of the ether = avg. 5.67 new points per team
Now the average total # of points per team is 92.5

Once you consider again that the median (Team #8 in each conference) will continue to be a few points ahead of the mean, then it's clear: 95 points often won't be good enough to make the playoffs, even though it nominally represents a record of 13 games over .500.

This is the root of my prediction off the top. I think the fan & media outcry from these teams who look great in the standings except for that pesky "Rank" will provide the NHL a good excuse to add a prelim round to the playoffs (I've heard Best-of-3, 7 v. 10, 8 v. 9 in each conference).

There's also a separate but no less important point to be made here. Most teams will win approximately half of their overtime (incl. shootout) games. Yes, a few will win more, or less, but especially with the sample size more than doubling (no ties!), most teams will win roughly half of their OT/SO games and lose roughly half.

You are Oilers coach Craig Mactavish, tied playing in Philadelphia with 15 minutes left in the 3rd period. A win in regulation is worth 2 points, a loss zero. A tie at the end of regulation is worth 1.5 points, because half the time you'll get 1 point, and half the time you'll get 2.

Under the previous system, you could assign a value to Tie At End Of Regulation as about 1.2 - 40% or so of OT games ended with a goal, and you could expect that to be your team's goal about half the time.

The new system makes "surviving regulation time" that much more lucrative - instead of winning the 2nd point about one in five times, now you'll win it about one in two times.

So, Coach MacTavish, you gonna open things up in the 3rd? Take a few risks?

I think the shootout will be fun, and I've always liked 4-on-4 OT. But I'm pretty worried about what the incentive to get to OT will do to the quality of play in regulation. It would be a shame if the shootout turned out to be massively popular, but only because the 3rd period is always so dull.

UPDATE: As I noted, I don't like to be a complainer, so I have a proposed solution.

The NHL has decided that they don't care if every game is worth the same number of points (e.g. 2). So instead of making OT/SO games 3-point games, make them 1-point games.

Then there is a genuine incentive to win in regulation, since if it's tied, you are guaranteed nothing, and 1 point vanishes permanently into the ether. There's still only a 1-point difference between winning the OT/SO and losing, so you can't argue that this punishes teams that are generally good, but specifically poor at "gimmick hockey" (for lack of a better word; I'm referring to 4-on-4 OT and the shootout).

You could argue that this punishes good, close-checking defensive teams who tend to be tied after regulation more than average. Based on the stated objectives of the NHL revitalization, the response to this ought to be, "Perfect!", oughtn't it?

The more compelling objection to this scheme is that the average NHL team would be below .500; basically you'd have the opposite problem to all the math noted above. Based on 315 of 1230 games in '03/'04 being tied after regulation, the average NHL team would have 71.5 points. There is nothing objectively wrong about this; it's just bad for the warm and fuzzy feelings of NHL fans who prefer to see their teams as "winning", and thus probably detrimental to overall NHL interest.

This must be made up

2005-07-22T12:26:00.000-06:00

Gene Healy on his vacation in Scotland:

Quite by accident (visiting the city museum) we stumbled upon Adam Smith's grave at the church across the street. Appropriately, there was a crumpled McDonald's wrapper on top of it.

Bleh

2005-07-22T12:11:00.000-06:00

I generally have a tough time getting too worked up media bias (or about anything, for that matter). But could the folks at Yahoo! really not think of a third answer for this poll?

Screenshot of Yahoo! Sports poll

This was a lockout, right, not a strike? So basically the question might as well be worded, "Why did it take the players so long to do exactly what the owners wanted?"

For the record, my answer is, "Because they were right, but you can't eat, wear, or live in that."

Calgary's 2005 Man of the Year

2005-07-21T11:59:00.000-06:00

Gary Bettman? Uh, sure.

"Save our small-market hockey team!!!"

Cap chat

2005-07-21T11:13:00.000-06:00

So, I hear there's going to be NHL hockey next season! For this I am glad. I suspect I'll be getting back to my old routines as a Flames fan, although I can't be sure. I think the new CBA is bad for just about everyone, but it was a voluntary agreement, so they can live with it.

My respect for (Flames prez) Ken King and Darryl Sutter has gone down considerably as a result of their rhetoric during the lockout. Mercifully, they declined to demean the city of Calgary and its fans in the same fashion as (to state the obvious example) Cal Nichols and the gang up in Edmonchuk. The flip side of this is that it left them without any real argument, valid or not, as to why Flames fans should be happy about the whole lockout chain of events.

The day after the agreement was announced, I saw Ken King on TV saying that now it was up to the team to show the fans that the lost year was "worth the wait". I'm not sure what that means, because I don't know what possible future scenario could prove this. Seriously, anyone?

As the best commentators have noted, we can't really know how things will play out from here, in a number of ways. Will it improve the "competitive balance"? No idea, especially since I have yet to see an attempt anywhere to empirically define or measure what that means. If it does produce more "parity", will that be a good or a bad thing overall? I'm leaning towards "Bad", but I can't be sure.

Say the Senators win the Cup this season, then lose their 1st and 5th scorers, and 2nd and 4th defensemen, to free agency (i.e. cap considerations). Ottawa fans enthusiastic about competitive balance should in theory applaud this: "That's what's great about this league - talent is evenly distributed, everybody has a chance every year." In the immortal words of Edith Prickley, "ppp-HAH!" I've also yet to hear anyone argue that the fact that the Red Wings have been one of the Top 5 teams in the league for 10 straight years has been bad for the league.

Parity and other issues aside, there are some things that we KNOW will result from the new CBA.

1) The cap and revenue sharing will be bad for league growth.

Every innovation in the past 50 years of the NHL has been initiated by a team, not by the league as a whole. (I use innovation not in the sense of "new technology", but rather "new idea designed to extract money from fans voluntarily".) Many of these innovations have been widely adopted, or even uniformly adopted as NHL policy, but the fact remains that they all came from businesses seeking to grow, improve, and gain profit.

Third jerseys, seat licenses, Pizza Hut in the concourse, game packs, coaches' radio shows, reserved parking lots, etc. etc. etc...none of these things came as a result of a partnership committee in the NHL offices. Individual teams initiated these things to grow revenue, improve their teams, and/or make more profit.

Both a salary cap and revenue sharing act as disincentives for this kind of innovation. In the case of (say) the Leafs, it's a powerful one. Proponents of revenue sharing seem to take the pile of league revenues as a given, as if redistributing them won't change anyone's behaviour. This is economically illiterate. Here's Chris Selley from back in February:

The economic situation also means that revenue sharing makes no sense for the NHL. With no league-wide source of revenue independent of individual teams and their fans (that is, a television contract) to share, such a system would amount simply to redistributing money from the rich teams' fans to the poor teams' players. You'll need one hell of a PR firm to spin that to positive.

Add the fact that many of the will-be recipients of these redistributions (say Nashville) are playing in arenas built by the government, and paying less tax. Suddenly the Leafs are in a situation where their revenues far exceed what they are allowed to spend on players. What will they do?

- At the one extreme, they could maintain or raise ticket prices, and continue to take risks to develop new revenue streams, all so that a good portion of their excess revenue can be mailed to Nashville and Pittsburgh.

- At the other extreme, they could drop ticket and beer prices to a level where they spend the full cap, cover their other expenses, and make a tidy but not gaudy profit. Obviously much less, if any, revenue is available to redistribute in this case.

The reality will no doubt fall somewhere between these two extremes. But note that the first extreme is pleasing to people in Nashville, whereas the second is pleasing to people in Toronto. I'll leave it to you to determine how that might affect the Toronto Maple Leafs' planning.

When a team like the Leafs isn't even sure that they want to grab all the revenues that they know are available, they will absolutely not be risking anything on ventures where they don't know that money is available. This means zero growth.

2) The middle-class will be hollowed out of the player salary structure.

The superstars and the journeymen won't be much affected by the salary cap. It will be fantastic for the not-quite-superstars, and awful for the average to slightly-above-average players.

I posted (with research!) about this in January. The institution of a team cap, and an individual cap hurts average players. The superstars get paid the max. The near-superstars get paid the max. The players with expiring contracts (or one year remaining) who look like they are developing into superstars get the max. It just doesn't leave money for a healthy middle class.

Quiz: what do NBA players Allan Houston, Michael Finley, Keith Van Horn, Penny Hardaway, Jalen Rose, Shawn Marion, and Antawn Jamison have in common?

Answer: For the most part, they're nice players, comfortably above-average in talent, occasional All-Stars. They're also all signed to long-term contracts for the league maximum. Tom Benjamin argues here that NHL teams won't get into the same messes, because one top NHL player just can't have the same impact as one top NBA player.

Even setting aside goaltenders, my reaction to this is, "Wanna bet?" Take the Oilers (please..heheh). When they gave up Doug Weight a few years ago, they could plausibly argue to their fans that they simply could not afford to pay one player $7M USD (exact figure eludes me). (Also, whether it would have been wise to do so, especially with the benefit of hindsight, is another matter).

Under the same scenario today, Oiler fans would look around the league and see every other team with roughly the same amount of money to spend, many or most of which have a top player making the maximum. How could they say that they can't afford to sign their own best player, with the same resources everyone else has? It would look to fans like the Oilers are unwilling to seriously compete (or uninterested).

The Hawks' Bill Wirtz is the only owner I can think of who genuinely doesn't care if his fans think he's trying to win. Everyone else is going to feel the pressure to show that they are doing what they can. If you're an NHL GM, and you have (say) the 10th-best skater in the league, you'll be signing him to a max contract. Then you'll run around hoping that you can offer your 4th defenseman and 3rd line wingers fifty grand more than the other guy.

In 3 years, there will be 25-40 players making the maximum. That's my prediction. I'm not at all worried it'll come back to haunt. This post is too long to continue.

ee's not dead, ee's resting...

2005-07-20T13:17:00.000-06:00

Well, working, actually, although that's never stopped me from posting before. Two weeks of nothing! Shame on me. Thanks for all your cards and letters asking me to return, by the way. Jerks. I'll have comments on the NHL resolution shortly.

"He won."

2005-07-07T23:50:00.000-06:00

Some quick housekeeping - I've added a few more excellent sites to the blogroll. Welcome to Billy Beck and to the Bear & Friends. I snicker at bloggers who describe themselves as libertarian, but Mr. Beck is quite obviously the real deal. The folks at Blank Out Times are both prolific and interesting.

Mathew Ingram's A Complete Waste of Time is filled with absolutely fascinating bits of tech and art. Macduff et al manage at times to defend various bits of statism in a way that doesn't make me want to have Telus cancel my internet connection, so kudos to them.

Last but certainly not least, I've added Tom Benjamin's NHL Weblog. It is a travesty that not a single media outlet in North America employs a commentator with Tom's interest in challenging the Bettman/owner "vision" for the NHL, let alone his skill.

Tom had a terrific post on Canada Day that will save me the trouble of writing my own. Here's the nuts:

"We're not prepared to live with the current system. We think the current system is fatally flawed. We want it fixed. We know what the problems are, and we know how to fix it... We have a fundamentally different vision for the future of this game. I think we speak for the game because the types of concerns that the fans have are the very types of concerns that we're trying to address with getting a new system... we're asking people, our fans, to be patient with us with the assurance that we will make things right." - Gary Bettman

Gary Bettman won and it's time to deliver on those assurances. Bettman made promises to the fans if they supported him through this fight. They did, and he won. They supported him because they believed in his vision, a vision that supposedly assured the health of the league for the long term. The players offered a band-aid, a short term fix. Bettman rejected it and blew off the year to fix the game for all time, or at least for the next ten or fifteen years.

No apologies are required. All Gary has to do is deliver on the promised utopia. He said he knew how to fix all the game's ills and promised to make everything right. He proved he has the power to get his own way. It's time to shut up and put up the Gary Bettman hockey league. It had better be great.

I've been contemplating things along the same lines for the past few weeks, ever since it became clear that the players were conceding. My biggest frustration with the analysis of the NHL contract dispute is that there is never mention of how we ought to judge whether the new system works. Hell, beyond the odd cliche about competitive balance and a "level playing field", I'm not even that clear what most pundits want!

It would make me very happy if every member of the Hockey Writers was made to answer this brief questionnaire, especially since most of them claim to speak for "the fan". It'd be pretty meaningless right now, but I think that in 5 or 6 years we might find it useful to have some of this down on paper.

(1). How do you plan on judging whether the new NHL CBA is an improvement over the old one? Is there at least one objective standard that should be met?

(2). Regardless of how things shake out over the next 5 years, at this point, the commissioner and the owners have gotten what they wanted, and the players have not. If the NHL fails to meet expectations over the next several years, are you prepared to hold the commissioner and the owners accountable as the ones responsible for this failure?

(3). If the NHL does in fact fail to meet your expectations over the next several years, and it is reasonable to hold the commissioner and the owners responsible: What level of skepticism would it be appropriate to cast on the owners' proposed solution next time?

If I could hear a few hockey pundits answer even just Question #1, I would be thrilled.

Frontrunner for Sportsman of the Year

2005-07-07T13:07:00.000-06:00

I haven't thought too deeply about all possible contenders, but what Roger Clemens is doing right now, 4 weeks shy of his 43rd birthday, is nothing short of astounding.

His road ERA right now is a that-must-be-a-typo 0.20. He's pitched 46 innings away from home, and has allowed a grand total of ONE EARNED RUN: a 2-out, solo homer to Colorado's Preston Wilson, in a game he left after 7 innings with a 4-run lead.

His 2.22 ERA at his home Minute Maid Park is tremendous as well; recall that in its previous incarnation as Enron Field, the park was affectionately nicknamed Ten-Run Field.

Here in 2005, we're mostly over the shock of having athletes perform well past their 40th birthdays. The top athletes take great care of themselves. But to see a guy having a career year at age 42, when you could plausibly argue he's already had two Hall-of-Fame careers, is inspirational to this sports fan.

"If you weren't my son, I'd hug you"

2005-07-03T19:59:00.000-06:00

"The only place you can find a Main Street these days is in Disneyland," Hank once said. "And just try to buy a gun there."

I threw a lotta love at Mike Judge and King of the Hill back in February, so I was fascinated, and a little bit proud, to read this story in the New York Times about "King of the Hill Democrats".

North Carolina's two-term Democratic governor, Mike Easley, is so obsessed with the show that he instructs his pollster to separate the state's voters into those who watch King of the Hill and those who don't so he can find out whether his arguments on social and economic issues are making sense to the sitcom's fans.

I'm pointing to this story not to assert that this is genius political strategy, but because both the writer and Gov. Easley understand the show and have affection for it. Says the Governor:

"This is only the second show that's a comedy about the South -- this and Andy Griffith -- that doesn't make fun of Southerners"

Here's writer Matt Bai's best graf:

...despite decent ratings, Fox has been buying fewer episodes and shifting its time slot, and there are rumors that the network may want to substitute yet another new reality show in its place. This is odd: after all, there is more reality about American life in five minutes of ''King of the Hill'' than in a full season of watching Paris Hilton prance around a farm in high heels.

Bingo! And here's the best classic show line shared in the article:

When Peggy tells him he'll look like a racist for snubbing his Laotian neighbor, Hank replies, "What the hell kind of country is this where I can only hate a man if he's white?"

Anyway, read the whole article. By the way, my aforementioned "Unnamed Mike Judge Comedy" film due out this year now has a name: Idiocracy. It is apparently slated for release August 5th. Enjoy.

Life Imitates Simpsons Dept.

2005-06-29T14:43:00.000-06:00

Is it possible for an 18- to 34-year-old North American to read this story and not think of Mr. Burns, Fidel Castro, and a trillion-dollar-bill?

BOSTON (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin walked off with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring, but was it a generous gift or a very expensive international misunderstanding?

Following a meeting of American business executives and Putin at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg on Saturday, Kraft showed the ring to Putin -- who tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, according to Russian news reports.

It wasn't clear if Kraft, whose business interests include paper and packaging companies and venture capital investments, intended that Putin keep the ring.

I can see it now:

Kraft: All we ask is preferential treatment because of my fabulous celebrity! [Kraft holds the Super Bowl ring up.]

Putin: May I see?

Kraft: Ho ho ho, see with your eyes, not with your hands!

Putin: Please, we are all amigos here!

Kraft ass't: Mr. Kraft.. I think we can trust the president of Russia..

Kraft: [hands it to Putin, and waits a couple of seconds.] Now, give it back...

Putin: Give what back?

Kraft: D'ohh...

My Hero!

2005-06-28T15:43:00.000-06:00

Can I tell you how much I like Jeremy Roenick?

"If people are going to sit and chastise pro athletes for being cocky - for being suck asses - they need to look at one thing and that's the deal we're going to be signing in about three weeks. Pro athletes are not cocky. Pro athletes care about the game. Everybody out there who calls us spoiled because we play a game - they can kiss my ass....I will say personally, personally, to everybody who calls us spoiled, you guys are just jealous, and screw you guys because we have tried so hard to get this game back on the ice to make it better for the fans. And if you don't realize that, don't come. We don't want you in the rink, we don't want you to watch hockey. Period."

It's been an ongoing source of confusion (and frustration) for me over the past year to know that >80% of hockey fans (and media) blame the players for the lost season. The arguments have been hashed out ad nauseam in sports media and on this blog, but there's one that bears repeating one last time:

This is not a normal labour negotiation. Even if the players "won" the negotiations hands-down, not one of them would make a single cent unless a team owner freely and willingly signed them to a contract. As it is, it appears that they will have "lose" hands-down, and be the first sports union in my memory to emerge from contract negotiations freely admitting it. As in, "We think this is a terrible deal, but it looks like it's the best we're going to get, and we want to play, so we're signing."

And when the new agreement doesn't work (for various reasons both foreseeable and not), and they are trying to negotiate the next one five years down the road, I guarantee it will again be the players under the gun to "accept the financial realities of the business", etc. etc.. Furthermore, the pundits who, like the last 10 years, spend the next 5 years lambasting Gary Bettman for his sorry management of the NHL product, will again decide that he and the owners are the ones who are guarding the best interests of the league.

It's enough to make this hockey fan sick. I'm forced to conclude that only a part of the fans' animus towards the players can be explained by misguided self-interest. The rest, I'm afraid, is borne out of envy--which is a really distasteful thing to witness on such a large scale. Roenick is right.

Nature, etc.

2005-06-27T15:13:00.000-06:00

The Aldini family mission in the summer is to leave town as often as possible. I can't quite mentally "leave work behind" the same way as when I had a J-O-B, but it's still terrific.

Pictured below are the Aldini boys, ages Almost-5 and 14 Months. As you can plainly see, they are born campers: all they're missing is the lake- or creek-chilled beer (and please don't offer them one, as the younger will gladly accept and chug away).

The Aldini Camping All-Stars

So far this year we've hit Dinosaur Provincial Park (in the Badlands) and Waterton Lakes National Park (in the Rockies near the U.S. border). Next up: Two Jack Lake, in the scenic and very popular Banff National Park.

I love summer.

Licia+Corbella+plagiarism

2005-06-22T23:57:00.000-06:00

That's the Google search that has produced one or two dozen hits to this site today. I'm getting hit because of this post from April:

Chris Selley has caught Calgary Sun editor Licia Corbella in a nasty bit of plagiarism, and notes:

I can't honestly say I'm surprised. When you spend your entire life parroting right-wing talking points you read somewhere else, sooner or later you're bound to regurgitate one verbatim.

Yep--like or dislike Ms. Corbella's columns, that is an incontrovertibly good point...

The link to Tart Cider has vanished into thin air, as have references to Selley's watchdogging I noted here and here, at minimum.

Doucheblog has the only explanation why that I can find: in the context of an apology. Go read.

********************

It would appear that Ms. Corbella has recently discovered that her reputation is being undermined on the internet, and she and her lawyers have taken some SLAPP-style action. I find this to be pretty unfortunate.

As you will have noted from her email to the Doucheblog, much of her defense for what many of us would consider plagiarism is that she is contractually permitted to use Canadian Press copy without attribution.

This is weak. As you the reader will find if you Google "definition of plagiarism", the transgression is passing off someone else's words as your own. Anecdotally, this is certainly how it was explained to me as a university student.

What bothers me with this deal is, I like Licia Corbella. I have corresponded via email (not spam-filtered, apparently!) with her in the past, and I found her to be lovely. I'm sad that she's decided to crack down on people who called what she has done "plagiarism", rather than rebut the specifics of the allegations. She ought to be offering an explanation; instead, she seems to think that the word "plagiarism" is what's damaging her reputation.

That's not the case, Ms. Corbella: what's damaging your reputation is that entire paragraphs are running under your Opinion byline that appear to have been written by someone else. CP may be cool with that; at least a handful of readers (and that's what bloggers are, basically) aren't cool with it, and a whole lot more wouldn't be either if they had any damn idea.

The fact that this causes you embarrassment is not a matter of law. You need to address this problem directly, otherwise it will only get worse. Best wishes.

I would like to shoot...

2005-06-22T12:26:00.000-06:00

...the person who invented the metaphor of the "level playing field". If you hear a politician, businessman, or other public figure use it, I 99% guarantee that their broader point is a load of crap.

More soon, I hope.

Lee Richardson does not speak for me

2005-06-21T11:20:00.000-06:00

As some of you may have heard, we've had quite a bit of rain here. It caused flooding just about everywhere between Edmonton and Lethbridge (separated north-south by more than 400km). Many people's homes have been destroyed (see Dust My Broom for pics of what's probably the worst area in the province); countless more have suffered property damage and/or were evacuated.

When you can't find an upside to a crisis, you can generally at least find a learning opportunity, and I believe that's the case here. In short, disaster response and management is a pretty good model for where the responsibilities of the various levels of Canadian government should lie. Usually, the federal government is concerned with things like how fast my hospital can provide me with a CT scan, and what I should be allowed to put in my kids lunch, whereas local governments address issues like what to do about nuclear weapons, and whether various pesticides are scientifically justifiable. It makes no bloody sense at all.

When a flood or other disaster happens, and plans & decisions need to be made promptly, we see local governments, or even voluntary associations in communities, manage direct action. Of course! People who are right there, and the politicians responsible directly to them, are the ones most able to prioritize and address the right needs immediately. Provincial, and less so federal, governments provide financial assistance after the fact.

Note that this division of responsibilities has nothing at all to do with the importance of the issue. Stuff like evacuations and emergency sheltering are literally a matter of life or death for some, and yet we don't see Anne McLellan elbowing the Mayor of High River aside saying, "This is serious--I'll take over from here." (Gallows humour sidebar from Mrs. Aldini's brother: "Surprising to see a flood in a place named High River". Ahem.)

I'm quite aware that the desire to have the remotest level of government provide most services is inseparable from the plausibility of believing that "someone else" is paying for it, but I wish people would look at situations like the one in Alberta now and think, "You know, maybe 'national standards' are not self-evidently superior".

P.S. This whole rant was, errr, inspired by Calgary Southeast MP Lee Richardson (CPC) in today's National Post:

"The real question is: where are the feds?" said Tory MP Lee Richardson, whose Calgary riding includes the overflowing Bow and Elbow rivers and is among the worst-hit areas.

"If this was happening in central Canada, the Prime Minister would have been there 20 minutes later."

Oh, shut up. Alberta makes a terrible victim - and that suits me just fine.

ragamuffin...rutabaga...

2005-06-20T21:55:00.000-06:00

Greg Staples and others (Andrew, Sean, Cosh, Janes) have been discussing things you can't say in Canada, spurred by a Peggy Wente piece in Reader's Digest.

I have little to add myself, but I did perk up at #2: "Recycling is a waste of time and money". I might dispute this statement, but it's clearly a debate that would benefit from the inclusion of more (any?) science, economics, and plain-old critical thinking. To further this discussion, it's time for another installment of (dut-dut-DAH):

Classic Kirchhoff
(originally published April 28, 2004)

It's proper to begin with this pithy point supporting the affirmative:

Of course, recycling costs money, which is a rough but not entirely unreliable proxy for the fact that it also generally consumes more resources than it saves.

But lest you stand firm on that rather solid rule-of-thumb, consider this:

But recycling is an example of what my number-crunchy analysis might fail to capture. Don't get me wrong: recycling of paper and plastic (materials which are easily incinerated and derived from resources either renewable or effectively infinite) would definitely be among the 50% of state activity that would be cancelled in the Evan-utopia, but let me play devil's advocate here.

Arguably, recycling produces moral edification that cannot be reduced to stats about resources or energy. It's clear that the sorting of trash has caused us all to think of consumer goods as part of a longer narrative where the remnants persist even after we "discard" them; we've learned to at least make reflexive jokes about items whose packaging vastly outweighs the goods inside. Hence, even if there's no environmental gain in recycling our current garbage, it's not absurd to think that we might be producing much more garbage if we were less conscious of it, especially given that we're twice as wealthy as our counterparts in the early recycling era...

I grew up during the 1970s, a time when they had to run TV commercials to tell people that if you threw cans and wrappers and crap out of your car window, the crap would, in fact, just lie there by the highway wherever it landed. Apparently this was not sufficiently obvious from first principles. I don't know if this was an aesthetic failure or a widespread causal misunderstanding, but a notable attitude change has occurred since then, and I'm not sure it can be entirely separated from faith-based activities like sorting magazines and margarine tubs into colored bins. Recycling might be best defended as a secular sacrament, a communal ceremony that reinforces modes of thought which are not completely unreasonable.

I doubt you'll find a heartfelt argument for recycling that makes as much sense as that bit of devil's advocacy.

I harbour comparable sentiments about impaired driving. I think the quantity of Checkstops, and PSAs, and miscellaneous finger-wagging about driving under the influence, in this 21st century, is massively overscaled. I think it assumes everyone is a potential criminal, and it too often diverts police resources from arresting people who pose much greater threats to public safety: not just the small group of people who regularly drive erratically and extremely impaired, but regular non-driving-related criminals.

At the same time, I grew up during the 1970s, a time when they had to run TV commercials to tell people that if you were too drunk to walk and/or stay awake, you were not able to drive a car safely. Apparently this was not sufficiently obvious from first principles. Far fewer people stumble into the driver's seat in 2005 than in 1965, and I'm not sure this can be entirely separated from faith-based activities like tying red ribbons around car antennae, or modifying the standard New Year's greeting to include "Be sure to call a cab".

Still married, solvent

2005-06-17T23:08:00.000-06:00

Whoops - I just about got through the whole day without noting that it was one year ago today that Jerry Aldini - Only The Name Is Phony was launched.

As it happens, my first post of substance from that first day related to the Supreme Court of Canada; namely, the elections gag law, upheld 6-3 in a decision written by Bastarache (there is "a danger that political advertising may manipulate or oppress the voter.").

This hasn't gotten much attention in a year, so I'll haul out the best point I made for a blogiversary special:

Thanks to a law whose purported intent was "that wealth should not be used to drown out the voices of ordinary Canadians in an election", ordinary Canadians can only be heard with the leave of multi-billion dollar media conglomerates...

Regular readers of this BL*G are advised two things: the likelihood of the author retiring is remote. The likelihood of the content focus continuing to veer wildly is near certain.

Where I conclude with a rhetorical question

2005-06-17T09:34:00.000-06:00

Next time you roll your eyes when Jay Jardine talks about lethal force underlying everything the government does, think back to this story:

The province's civil-liberties director is condemning a three-day jail term served by a Kelowna man for not wearing a bicycle helmet

Michael Hein, 19, got out of jail Tuesday after he was arrested Saturday for riding his bike downtown without head protection. A judge sentenced him to time served and fined him $35 for breaking the city's helmet bylaw.

I realize that many Canadian adults, when polled, cannot distinguish between, "Do you think it's a good idea to wear a bike helmet?" and "Do you think there should be a law requiring people to wear bike helmets?" - which is obviously the only reason why helmet laws ever gain popular support. I wonder what the results would be if the question was, "Would you support a bike helmet law if the penalty for multiple infractions was jail time?"

Judge Wilf Klinger said he was concerned about Hein's "attitude and unwillingness to abide by this bylaw."

No comment. Worth noting also, since it's been a hot topic these days, that this story also contains the best non-economic argument for the complete privatization of health care I've seen in ages:

[Bylaw enforcement officer Kurt] Szalla argued wearing helmets saves tax revenue because the health costs of treating a head-injured cyclist can be huge. He pointed to a homeless cyclist struck by a car at Harvey Avenue and Abbott Street last year who is "still in a vegetative state."

Set aside for now whether this is actually true; Andrew Coyne has written frequently that helmet laws discourage some people from cycling at all, many do not replace this physical activity with anything else, and thus become less healthy, with all the attendant pressures on the health care system.

What we have here is a bylaw enforcement officer, pretty much the lowest incarnation of state power, justifying locking someone up for three days because of a higher moral imperative: maybe saving the public health care system some money. How far can that logic extend, I wonder?

If you can stand it...

2005-06-16T23:08:00.000-06:00

...I have more word count on the Charter and Chaoulli in the comments at Let It Bleed. My regards go out to Bob for engaging this topic with vigour despite not being a constitutional specialist.

I sympathize with the position he's in. I'm an engineer, but if I were asked to comment on a pulley system, I'd frankly chicken out. It's more comfortable to spit out opinions in areas where you have no education than where you have some education.

"Your'e treating us like children -- retarded children."

2005-06-15T12:14:00.000-06:00

Great stuff on smoking bans from Balko (and Hitchens, quoted in the header), Healy, and Sanchez. The context for all the pieces is the D.C. City Council banning smoking in bars, but excepting the compromise bill they note, all of it is widely applicable.

My short take, of course, is that I'm against these bans. The biggest reason is not the property rights issue, "discussed" by Selley and Jardine in the comments here (although it would be nice if ban proponents would concede that they are compromising your property rights, and at least be explicit about the trade-off they are proposing).

My deep objection to these bans is that there is no "end of the line". I certainly can't think of a logical one. Ban proponents give every indication that no victory is ever final, i.e. cause for retirement. If smoking in bars is banned, we will merely move on to having the identical discussion about a new venue in a couple of years. And then another.

There is no medical or philosophical argument put forth in favour of smoking bans in bars that could not be applied similarly, and presumably equally successfully, to smoking just about anywhere, including in your own garage. Is there?

Man on Fire

2005-06-15T11:10:00.000-06:00

Save this one for when you have at least 10 minutes, but go read Billy Beck, and that to which he links (especially the Carl Drega story).

I'm not trying to be coy. Here's the root topic, per Kim DuToit:

Reader (and blogger) Ron S. asks the question which lies at the heart of an armed society: “At what point do you start shooting?”

What he means, of course, is the part where tyranny has become intolerable: the soap box, letter box and ballot box have become irrelevant, and what’s left is the cartridge box.

Let me make just one thing clear, before I go any further: This is not seditious talk—contained within the very heart of the Second Amendment lies the thought that one day, government gets too big for its britches.

This a worthwhile question for anyone who ever contemplates the role of government, and more importantly, the meaning of citizenship. Forget the part quoted above about "an armed society" and the Second Amendment: what would it take for you to decline to recognize the Canadian government? What would you do about it? Just because in 2005 you can hardly imagine doing so is no reason to bury the question in the Scary Thoughts Hole. What would you advise your children?

Today Canada is one of the freest countries in the world, and these questions are certainly hypothetical. Compared to the folks linked and quoted above, I certainly have a much higher pain threshold for state-exerted power, as I know most of you do. But that's really not a good excuse to hide from the question.

Too-shay

2005-06-14T08:09:00.000-06:00

A fellow Southern Albertan notices a bizarre sight overhead (ÞJanes):

The streets of Calgary erupted in a mass panic this morning as a giant ball of fire seems to have appeared over-night in the eastern sky.

A question for the lawyers

2005-06-14T07:22:00.000-06:00

In P.201-203 of their Chaoulli dissent, Binnie & Lebel rejected that Quebecers "liberty" was at risk, reasoning that economic & property rights are not ennumerated in the Charter.

Is this sound? To me, the logical extension of this reasoning is that "liberty" might as well not be referenced in the Charter at all. If it only refers to the liberty to exercise rights which are ennumerated, then it's essentially redundant, i.e. meaningless.

Or put another way, what if the (say) Alberta govt. enacted a law saying you're only allowed to sleep with someone of the opposite sex to whom you're married? Could they say that they're not violating anyone's liberty, since "sexual rights" are not included in the Charter? What the hell?

Obviously there's some other precedent or Section with which the law could be overturned, but what exactly is "liberty" worth, if it's not pretty open-ended?

Tunes, man

2005-06-13T22:06:00.000-06:00

I really don't mind these games at all; I find it interesting to learn what other people are into. Like just about everyone though, I assume most others feel the opposite, so I'm reluctant to keep the meme moving. To the task at hand:

1) How many music files are there on your computer?

None. When I'm trying to block out the world while I'm at the computer, it's NBA.com audio, or more recently, MLB.com. I bought the NBA subscription in late October, as a nod to the lack of NHL. $35 US, you get the Home & Away radio feeds for every game all year. If anyone cares, I wouldn't recommend it, but I would recommend the baseball package (only $15 US). I found it tough to get used to basketball on the radio - I think because I had trouble keeping track of the score. Baseball lends itself a lot better to background noise.

2) What was the last CD you bought?

A Bing Crosby Christmas, in December. Other than that, I don't remember the last CD I bought that wasn't a gift. At least 3 years ago.

3) What song do you have playing in iTunes?

What's iTunes?

4) What 5 songs mean a lot to you?

As you might gather from the answers above, of all the popular contemporary art forms, music just doesn't mean much to me or my life. But here's 5 Aldini favourites:

What's My Name, Snoop Doggy Dogg - profane in absolutely the most delightful way
Knee Deep, George Clinton (& the various P-Funk All-Stars, plus Digital Underground in this version) -- I just feel cool listening to the Grandmaster of Funk. This is also the last concert act I saw, and almost certainly the only concert I ever paid more than $20 for that I thought was worth every penny and more.
Enter Sandman, Metallica -- did I mention I was a Sci '95?
You Don't Know How It Feels, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers -- my favourite overall artist amongst those who have been performing most of my lifetime. U2 can suck it.
The Statue Got Me High, They Might Be Giants -- gives me pleasant flashbacks to the Kingston days. Anything from Flood or Apollo 13 will do, really.

Guess I need to read Anna Karenina...

2005-06-13T21:17:00.000-06:00

...seeing as how in the recently circulated book meme, it was first in the list of 5 "Books That Mean a Lot to Me" of not only Sacamano, but also Her Excellency the Governor-General.

Chaoulli: once more, with feeling

2005-06-13T20:30:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd take one more run at at Chaoulli v. Quebec, because despite the reams of comment in print and in the webasphere, there has been a void that I find notable. So: I categorically reject that this ruling constitutes judicial activism by any reasonable standard.

It has been broadly characterized as such because (A) the SCOC struck down a law duly passed by a legislature, and (B) the dissent contained a few words to the effect of, "Health care is a mess for legislatures to fix".

This is an extremely illiberal characterization: if you believe that this action in and of itself constitutes judicial activism, you necessarily believe that we ought to repeal the Charter. After all, what do we have it for? The Charter guarantees us certain rights and freedoms, with various exceptions, that may not be abrogated by statute. The Supreme Court is the guarantor of this at the end of the line. The simple striking down of a statute by the SCOC is not undemocratic.

The other way to argue that Chaoulli = judicial activism is to say that the majority struck down the law(s) based on rights that aren't in the Charter, or that they weighed and interpreted competing rights incorrectly to suit their political agenda. Here you can argue more plausibly; I just think you'd be wrong.

It's instructive to look at the things that all 7 Justices agreed on. Three are important:

(some) people die and/or suffer on waiting lists for public health care, and this violates their right to life and security of person
the legislative objective of the prohibition on private insurance is to preserve the public health care system
(1.) is only a violation of s.7 if (2.) violates an established legal "principle of fundamental justice"; in this case, whether the means are "arbitrary"

Then the Justices split in answering (3.), and they did so based overwhelmingly on their interpretation of the evidence tabled at the Superior Court.

The majority found the expert testimony supporting Quebec's position to be uncompelling due to its lack of data and facts. They also found evidence from other provinces and countries did not support the notion that private prohibition was logical. In the end, they found that it was "arbitrary".

The dissenters were compelled by Quebec's expert testimony (and by the trial judge's acceptance of it), and didn't find anything in the evidence from other countries to conclude that the prohibition was "inconsistent" with the objective of a strong public system. In the end, they found that it was not "arbitrary".

Essentially, the majority found that a government statute was killing people, for no good reason, and kiboshed that policy. Correctly, they said nothing about how to fix medicare. I just don't see how that amounts to four unelected judges ramming their agenda down Canadians' throats.

UPDATE: pogge gives me even more confidence that I'm right about this:

...the Supreme Court is standing up for the individual in the face of government mismanagement and inaction. That, in part at least, is exactly what we should expect of the Supreme Court and if that's activism I'm all for it.

"I'm trying to get her attention"

2005-06-13T19:57:00.000-06:00

As should be apparent over my time here at Jerry Aldini, I'm rather loathe to absolve people of personal responsibility for their stupid, stupid decisions.

But when I consider this case of this jackass Richard Kaczmarczyk, who is on a hunger strike to get his wife to quit smoking, I do find myself reserving a little contempt for western civilization's "public health" establishment.

I guess when the hysteria you promote about the dangers of smoking is never, ever qualified in any way, then once in a while people will react to smoking with wildly disproportionate responses (see also Godwin Like You Mean It here).

Here's my proposed solution to this spousal battle: the Missus agrees to smoke only 5 cigarettes a day, lowering her health risks considerably (why yes, in case you hadn't thought about it: cigarette smoke is like every other poison in the world, in that its lethality is proportional* to the dose!). In return, Dick agrees to have a sandwich and a Zoloft.

And in a perfect world, the health czar Michelle Mandel consults for the follow-up story concedes (without reluctance) that, besides "not smoking" being healthier than "smoking", "smoking a little" is healthier than "smoking a lot".

(*Not claiming this proportionality is linear.)

It's been 48 hours - am I any smarter now?

2005-06-11T11:09:00.000-06:00

Having had another day to reflect on Chaoulli, I don't think there's much I'd change about my original take, except maybe that I did oversimplify the reasons underlying (and hence the sturdiness of) the concurring opinion.

McLachlin & Major did not merely conclude that the prohibition on private insurance fails to meet the "minimum impairment" test under Oakes, but also that it fails to meet the "rational connection" test, and furthermore:

Indeed, we question whether an arbitrary provision, which by reason of its arbitrariness cannot further its stated objective, will ever meet the rational connection test under R. v. Oakes

So I got that goin' for me, which is nice(*). And a bit of triumphalism is certainly in order. The opposite ruling by the SCOC would have further entrenched the status quo, if that's even possible. I'd say the practical implications of the ruling are considerable: it would appear to me that any government seeking to restrict private health care in any way will have to provide empirical evidence that it is necessary to protect the public system, as the rhetorical arguments against a monopoly have carried the day. Also, "Who's laughing now, bitches?" is the funniest thing I read Thursday.

But on the whole, the more I think about the ruling, the more depressed I get.

I find it profoundly damaging to my dignity as a human being when I think about this: my right to look after my own body (such as it is) derives not from any enduring principles of humankind, nor from my country's constitution, but from the government's incompetence in looking after it for me.

I also find it demeaning to have it spelled out for me that my rights to liberty do not include freedom of contract, and that I certainly do not have "the right to spend my own money" -- not just in the context of health care or some other conflict with government's objectives, but period.

But, what the hey, right? btw, for a very cogent analysis of the decision supporting the dissent, see James MacDuff's work at Ahab's Whale.

Great moments in blogging Dept.

2005-06-10T11:40:00.000-06:00

Julian Sanchez:

Growing dope in your backyard for personal consumption? Commerce. Eating a ham sandwich on your porch? Commerce. The Friday column Jacob Sullum wrote at home in his study? Definitely commerce. With the possible exception of beating women and bringing guns to school, in fact, commerce, like God, is omnipresent and (by way of empowering Congress) omnipotent. All hail commerce.

Colby Cosh:

Back in Black doesn't sit very comfortably beside Billy Joel's Greatest Hits. But it permits us to observe that between Angus Young and Billy Joel, it's Billy who ended up as a corpulent half-sane burnout.

Nick Gillespie:

On a scale of importance of 1 to 10 (with 10 being totally important), this story of course rates a zero. You can argue that the school was clear and proper in its policy, that it told Benya ahead of time that the bolo tie wasn't right, that kids need to respect rules, that this sort of faux politically correct student insubordination is exactly why the terrorists hate us, why the Japanese will crush us economically, why jobs are being outsourced to India, why the Red Sox finally won the World Series, blah blah blah.

But I just don't think you can get away from the fact that high school administrators are the biggest bunch of jackasses in the world.

Mapmaster:

Taxes aren't quite the same thing as purchases — the non-voluntary nature is the giveaway...

Blog on, dudes.

Nothing rhymes with Chaoulli

2005-06-09T15:38:00.000-06:00

Having respected Sacamano's #1 Rule, I'm going to take a crack at breaking down today's SCOC decision on health care. There are a couple of spots where I will defer to people with formal legal training, but I hope that by giving an effort, I may address a couple of points that may be new, or not obvious, to non-lawyers, that a genuine law-talking-guy might skip over.

My overall impression is that there's something in there to disappoint everyone.

First of all, to anyone hoping that this decision establishes a legal principle or precedent that individuals have the right to medically care for our own bodies as we see fit: sorry! From the majority opinion, P.14 (italics mine):

As I mentioned at the beginning of my reasons, no one questions the need to preserve a sound public health care system. The central question raised by the appeal is whether the prohibition is justified by the need to preserve the integrity of the public system. In this regard, when my colleagues ask whether Quebec has the power under the Constitution to discourage the establishment of a parallel health care system, I can only agree with them that it does.

And from the dissent (not rebutted in the majority opinion), P.202:

Nor do we accept that s. 7 of the Canadian Charter guarantees Dr. Chaoulli the “liberty” to deliver health care in a private context. The trial judge correctly concluded that [translation] “s. 7 of the Canadian Charter does not protect a physician’s right to practise his or her profession without restrictions in the private sector. That is a purely economic right” (p. 823). The fact that state action constrains an individual’s freedom by eliminating career choices that would otherwise be available does not in itself attract the protection of the liberty interest under s. 7. The liberty interest does not, for example, include the right to transact business whenever one wishes: R. v. Edwards Books and Art Ltd., [1986] 2 S.C.R. 713, at p. 786. Nor does it protect the right to exercise one’s chosen profession: Prostitution Reference, at p. 1179, per Lamer J.

The MDs out there can chew on the prostitution reference; I'm going to let it slide for today's purposes. Here's P.203 (also not rebutted in the majority opinion):

While we do not accept that there is a constitutional right “to spend money”, which would be a property right, ...

In general, I find the implications of this decision for "freedom", de jure at least, as very little cause for enthusiasm.

Next, there is some uncertainty surrounding the decision as it may apply to the other 9 provinces. The way I read it, I would characterize the Quebec aspect of the decision as "somewhat irrelevant". There's essentially two issues in play.

A) Deschamps, who authored the majority opinion, based it on the Quebec Charter. Since the concurring Justices based their opinion on the Canadian Charter, I think this issue is probably irrelevant.

B) Quebec's restrictions on private care are not identical to the other 9 provinces. I'll take arguments here, but I understand Deschamps to be saying that the "letter of the law" of explicit restrictions is rather moot, as both the intent and the cumulative effect of smaller restrictions constitute "real" restriction; with the possible apparent exception of Newfoundland, this would seem to apply to all other provinces as well. P.54 is most relevant:

Although there are, at first glance, no provisions that prohibit the provision of services by an individual or a legal person established for a private interest, a number of constraints are readily apparent. In addition to the restrictions relating to the remuneration of professionals, the requirement that a permit be obtained to provide hospital services creates a serious obstacle in practice. This constraint would not be problematic if the prevailing approach favoured the provision of private services. However, that is not the case. Not only are the restrictions real (Laverdière, at p. 170), but Mr. Chaoulli’s situation shows clearly that they are. Here again, the executive branch is implementing the intention of the Quebec legislature to limit the provision of private services outside the public plan. That intention is evident in the preliminary texts tabled in the National Assembly, in the debate concerning those texts and, finally, in the written submissions filed by the Attorney General of Quebec in the instant case.

Again, I'll listen to arguments here, but I think the reasonable starting assumption here is that this ruling affects all Canadians.

Those two major points addressed, here's the gist of the ruling as I see it:

All the justices agree that, based on the present condition of the system, a prohibition of private medical insurance constitutes a violation of the right to life and security of person (although the dissenters insist on qualifying it as a violation for some people, their italics).
All the justices agree that the government is permitted to run a monopoly health system if they do it well enough.
Getting through all the broader and peripheral arguments, we run into our old friend Oakes, and we find this one sentence from P.156:

On the evidence here and for the reasons discussed above, the prohibition goes further than necessary to protect the public system: it is not minimally impairing.

4-3. Four justices believe that the "2nd tier" prohibition goes beyond what is necessary to protect the public system, and is thusly an unreasonable violation of Canadian's right to security of person. Three justices disagree, arguing that the impairment is reasonable, based on the government's objectives and the evidence as they see it. There you go, pretty much. A few other observations:

-- You will read some analysis, based on news reports or summaries, that the dissenting justices were "deferring to the legislatures", and furthermore that conservatives ought to be conflicted (Bob makes that point here). Take that with a large grain of salt, please. Sure, the dissenting justices start with this (P.161):

We are unable to agree with our four colleagues who would allow the appeal that such a debate can or should be resolved as a matter of law by judges. We find that, on the legal issues raised, the appeal should be dismissed.

But then they repeatedly, page after page, make political arguments. They further argue in P.214 that the Court owes the trial judge deference to her findings of fact and evaluation of expert testimony. Fair enough, but then they go on in P.242 to state this:

We therefore agree with the trial judge and the Quebec Court of Appeal that the appellants failed to make out a case of “arbitrariness” on the evidence. Indeed the evidence proves the contrary. We now propose to review briefly some of the evidence supporting the findings of the trial judge.

I'll defer to the lawbloggers here, but isn't this the judicial version of trying to have your cake and eat it, too? Either the evidentiary findings of the trial judge should be deferred to, or they should be re-examined - which is it? Seriously though: I can't believe someone could read the entire dissent and conclude that the Justices are attempting to "stay out of the way".

-- Rightwingers looking for something concretely positive in this ruling have this sentence from the concurring opinion, P.152:

When we look to the evidence rather than to assumptions, the connection between prohibiting private insurance and maintaining quality public health care vanishes.

Will politicians take note? Also read Deschamps in P.62-66; she stomps the standard pro-monopoly arguments into the ground.

-- It's appropriate that Colby Cosh, in his analysis, calls this "the most earth-shattering moment in Canadian jurisprudence since the Morgentaler ruling of January 28, 1988", because the majority opinion refers to that ruling frequently, and the dissenters object like hell. See P.43 and 118-121 for the majority opinion; P.259-264 for the dissent (under the sub-head, "The Morgentaler Case Is Not Applicable"(!)).

I look forward to reading other analyses. Please drop a comment if you object to any of my observations or conclusions.

Classic Kirchhoff Dept.

2005-06-08T16:20:00.000-06:00

Snooping around Alberta Blogs, and following some nested links, I came upon this piece, which I can say with some confidence is the best thing I've ever read on the internet.

I linked to it once before, months ago, but quality like this is worth revisiting. Go read.

Attention, abortion lobby (which by the way includes me): since you apparently have the only successful American political franchise for the idea that adult humans own their own bodies, you may just possibly have a dog in this fight. Or perhaps I should go back and reread key feminist literature for the part where it says that this deed of ownership extends to the boundaries of the uterus, but grubbier organs like my colon are merely on lease from Uncle Sam.

Unfortunate Anniversary Dept.

2005-06-08T16:03:00.000-06:00

Yesterday marked one calendar year since the last NHL game was played.

You should all consider yourselves lucky that I started this blog after that; you would have been subjected to frequent unhinged rantings about the Flames.

I happened to start playing hockey just outside of Calgary, at age 7, the year the Flames came to town. My Dad shared some season's tickets (until about 1999), so I got to go to games regularly at the old Corral, then the Olympic Saddledome, then the [insert name of soon-to-be bankrupt company here] Saddledome.

In September '03 I was offended that the Flames were listed as 85-1 to win the Stanley Cup (only Columbus was longer odds at 100-1), so I put down $10. It wasn't until after they beat Detroit that I really realized that my joy at a Flames Cup win would be complemented by $850, tax-free.

I was lucky enough to attend the Western Conference clincher against San Jose in the nosebleeds. Have I ever had a greater night? (My wedding reception was fun, but the best answer to this question is probably, "Not yet", and I'm pretty sure Mrs. Aldini would understand).

I actually used AutoCAD 3D to figure out if Gelinas' no-goal in Game 6 against the Lightning (that looked on TV like it was over the line, and would have won the Cup) was likely in or not. (The verdict: the refs probably made the right call).

It was a terrifically fun two months. So jeez - do I ever find it depressing to read about Tampa Bay and Calgary in last year's finals, and then be reminded that we haven't had the NHL for a year so that we can have a better system for Canadian and small-market American teams. Ugh.

Neighbourhood Watch dept.

2005-06-08T13:12:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking for a while about a blog to add to the Mandatory Reading section in the sidebar, bringing it up to an even 10. The search is over - welcome to Sacamano at No Hugs And No Learning. Since it looks like he's running a "real blog", I'm happy to vault him straight up to the top level.

I am in fact privy to Sacamano's true identity - he is an old friend - and he should have lots of interesting things to say, as he has some really unique experiences.

The Seinfeld gimmick looks pretty promising, based on his very first post on the book tag meme. (Although I don't expect "No Learning" to actually be applicable to his meanderings; he's been a comments-lurker at this blog and many others, under a variety of handles, and has an admirably open mind).

Today he takes a characteristically non-hysterical look at performance-enhancing drugs in sport. I hope to take on this same topic soon; for now, let me just say that an absence of hysteria is the crucial first step towards making any sense of policy in this area.

I should also mention that I'm finally joining something - Alberta Blogs. I've been reluctant to do this kind of thing in the past (e.g. Red Ensign, Blogging Tories), because I have that semi-rational feeling that I want my takes to be judged on their merits, and not against the backdrop of a set of assumptions. Being on an Alberta Blogs list does no such thing, since I do live here, and it's noted at the top of my page - anyone who wants to assume I'm an Alberta crank already has ample reason to do so...

On top of that, my lowly status in the Ecosystem bruises my ego, and this is an obvious and immediate way to crank that up, maybe rising to the level of something with fur, rather than wings - or scales.

Laughing, lots of laughing

2005-06-07T00:09:00.000-06:00

A. The London Fog says it well:

You can always look to Liberal communications firm CTV for creative headlines:

O'Brien's move triggers fears of election call

I love crap like this. You know if you asked the headline writer if s/he had considered, "O'Brien's move rekindles hope for early election", the writer would laugh ("Why would I write such a biased headline?" etc.). It's "right-wing think-tank" media syndrome. Actually, the other comparison these days is the NHL contract dispute: my local sports talk guys refer to Al Strachan & Larry Brooks as writers "on the players' side" all the time; have never once referred to a single writer as being "on the owners' side"; and then they claim they're "mad at everybody" and are neutral, i.e. above it all.

2. I think I've said this before, but the blogger with the best comments is Jim Treacher. This post is killer (I love the thought that someone has mentioned "Queen of the Space Unicorns" to Dan Rather's face).

D. Is there a sports fan in North America with internet access who wouldn't want to read this book? (ÞCosby Sweater)

Due respect to the Ecosystem, but as I understand traffic, Sports Guy is to Instapundit as Instapundit is to Jerry Aldini. It's also his first book, and it's on his favourite topic; if 2-3% of his Page 2 readers want to "pay him back" by buying his book, he's got a massive bestseller on his hands (hey, then maybe Rick Reilly can start taking shots at him!).

Huh?

2005-06-06T13:33:00.000-06:00

I have no problem with "inclusive language". If people who, say, don't have the use of their legs want their condition referred to as "physically challenged" instead of disabled, or crippled, or whatever, I'm honestly happy to cooperate.

I do have a problem, though, when I read an article implying I should care about the public policy implications of some difficult condition, and because they exclusively use a new (to me) term, I can't figure out exactly what the hell it is they're talking about.

The Agitator is sad

2005-06-06T11:16:00.000-06:00

Further to my previous comments, there is another reason why I no longer have any enthusiasm for getting the CPC elected. Most enthusiasm I ever had previously was based on the assumption that it was the best (or only) step towards smaller, more focused government - or at the very least a reduction in the government's growth rate.

Based on results below the 49th, that assumption is, and perhaps always was, false. To wit:

Americans are generally more supportive/receptive to limited government rhetoric than Canadians.
Republicans have controlled Congress for most of the past 10+ years, and the White House for the past 4+ years.

Despite this, the U.S. federal government is bigger and more intrusive than ever. Right-wingers are stuck either makinig excuses (e.g. Powerline), or barking at the moon, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

For a great example of the latter, see John Cole at Balloon Juice. Get a load of this list, in a post titled "So Much For What We Stand For":

Federalism- nope, don't need it.

Limited Government- nah- useless.

Fiscal Responsibility- forget it- outdated.

Tradition?- Whatever, loserboy.

Fair play?- For credit card companies, not for you.

State's rights- a quaint idea.

Separation of Church and State- Fuhgeddaboutit!

Limiting entitlement programs- nonsense!

Compassionate conservatism- meaningless buzzwords.

[...]

I expect that pretty soon the shills for the administration will be reading Dick Gephardt's old 'fair trade' speeches for justification for this. Exactly what does this party of mine believe in, really? I guess it can be summed up as this:

Money talks, and our bullshit walks.

Go to Cole's post for hyperlinks to all his examples. As for me, I can't think of one good reason why the CPC wouldn't be even worse.

I bring this up today because of the Supreme Court of the United States' affirmation that the federal government is allowed to prohibit people from growing small amounts of marijuana

in their own homes
for their own use
in accordance with their state laws

as a legitimate regulation of interstate commerce. For lots of details and angst-ridden analysis, go to Radley Balko's blog and just keep scrolling. Here's Clarence Thomas summing things up in his dissent:

If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything--and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

It's the feel-good story of the summer! Pricks.

UPDATE: David Bernstein (ÞInstapundit):

...the Republican Congress is vying with the Democratic Congresses of the 1930's and 1960's as the biggest supporter of increased federal power in American history.

Finally, some good news...

2005-06-02T11:52:00.000-06:00

Summer to be a hot one, says Weather Office - CTV.ca

Of course, this forecast is riddled with caveats. If only all civil servants could be as frank as Environment Canada's David Jones:

"I'm not trying to embarrass my organization at all, but you as a consumer of this information need to know that our skill at predicting precipitation over a long-range period is extremely low.

"In fact, honestly, we can't add much value to the forecast on precipitation."

Try to imagine substituting the word 'precipitation' here with 'compliance', or 'spending'.

sports, sports, sports, sports

2005-06-02T11:23:00.000-06:00

Who's the frontrunner for 2005/06 NBA MVP? This is one of those questions where I think the correct answer is, "Who cares? I just want to watch it play out!"

The smart money is probably Lebron; he came in 6th this year, and has shown no signs that he's ready to stop improving. Tim Duncan is still my favourite player, and if you discount age (i.e. years remaining in career), I don't think you trade him straight up for anyone right now. Dwyane Wade is phenomenal.

But if he wants it, I think the guy to beat has got to be Amare Stoudemire. What a fantastic, fantastic basketball player, and he's only got 3 years in. (The Sports Guy has already anointed him the greatest roller off the pick-and-roll in NBA history). 42 points, 16 rebounds, 4 blocks last night, but it wasn't enough. I've got to get satellite so I can sign up for the Full Court package next season.

And speaking of The Sports Guy, he had an absolutely classic mailbag yesterday, highlighted by this:

Q: Did you injure anything jumping on Danica Patrick's bandwagon this weekend? – Jerry T., Roanoke, Va.

SG: I wrenched my neck a little but that was about it. Actually, my dad and stepmom were in town this weekend, and since my stepmom is a raging feminist, every time they showed the inside of Patrick's car, I muted the volume on the TV and pretended I was Patrick talking to her pit crew: "Look, I told you, I'm going as fast as I can! I can't drive when you're talking to me!!! Stop telling me how to drive!!! I'm going to pull over and get out right now, I swear to God!" That was more fun than the actual race.

(Come on, somebody has to make these jokes.)

The last letter in the bag was golden, too:

Q: Quick Vegas/Celebrity Story – My buddy Ralph and I are playing craps at the Hard Rock last weekend at the table next to Elizabeth Shue. Every time we rolled a pass we were screaming out "Ali, with an I!" After about 20 minutes, she looks over at my friend Ralph and says "Hey ... that joke. It's really not workin for ya." Ralph pauses, looks her right in the eye, and says "I really like your car Mrs. Larusso!"
– JT, Holmdel, N.J.

SG: Yup ... these are my readers.

I'm sure it's possible to wear out Karate Kid references, but if he hasn't by now, it'll probably never happen.

Desert Island Reading

2005-06-01T21:16:00.000-06:00

Kate and Damian have tagged me. Excellent! This should give you all some real insight as to the inspiration for a lot of my deep political thinking.

Number of books I own: 200-ish. Well over half are sports-related, mostly biographies. My grandpa died in 1990; he was a big collector (accumulator?) of these types of books, and I was fortunate enough as a 16-year-old to come into possession of his sports library. (Some of it I could never "read", per se, but it's kind of incredible - I have a book called "How To Sprint" edited by Archie Hahn).

Last book I bought: Seabiscuit - Laura Hillenbrand. Anyone who has only seen the movie is really missing out.

Last book I read: Bud, Sweat, & Tees - Alan Shipnuck. He set out to write the tale of an unknown rookie on the PGA Tour; he picked Rich Beem, who went out and made the story go a little differently by winning one of his first tournaments. Good golf book, but I wouldn't call it great. A Good Walk Spoiled is still a better choice for giving you a really good impression of life on the Tour.

5 books that mean a lot to me: Very tough question, principally because I read much, much less than I once did. Here's five that I can think of now, I reserve the right to change my mind.

1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl. The first real book I read by myself, as I recall. There's probably other Roald Dahl books I came to love more, but I'm really looking forward to introducing this one to my boys (and hoping Tim Burton doesn't cock it up this summer).

2. The Odyssey - Homer. I can think of precisely one book written more than 50 years ago that I really like, and this is it.

3. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee. My favourite classic novel, although I'm a sucker for the setting, so I really couldn't tell you if it's objectively a fine work.

4. The Mad Men of Hockey - Trent Frayne. Awesome old-time hockey primer. The story about Eddie Shore's travails trying to get to a game in Montreal (which makes this [ahem, this] look like a carriage ride in Central Park) is probably the best sports anecdote I've ever read.

5. You Could Look It Up: The Life of Casey Stengel - Maury Allen. This is merely one of the many sports biographies I'm fond of, but it's certainly one of the best. Stengel was a very interesting fellow, and as a bonus, following his playing and managing careers takes you through the heart of 50 years of baseball history.

Who are five others whose answers to these questions I'd be interested in? How about Selley, Myrick, Nancy, Harlem Spanish, and my old friend Bob Sacamano -- maybe this will prompt him to post something. All those tagged should rest assured that my feelings will not be hurt in the slightest if you duck this meme.

Sentence fragment of the day

2005-05-31T15:23:00.000-06:00

My favourite would have to be this one:

Um, so one of the proposals I have is this that tomorrow's vote, if, let me phrase it in the abstract, if 2 members of the Conservative Party abstained...

Hey, maybe it WAS too early to award Scumbag of the Year!

I'll reiterate something I wrote in September:

They obviously have the wrong Queen's alum as Chief of Staff. It should be this guy; I understand he's a lawyer, who also possesses at least the rudimentary organizational skills required to operate a bowling alley.

Save us, Ed!!!

ADDENDUM: I'm sure I'll regret this, but let's drag some logic into this mess. Regarding the quote above from my fellow Queen's alum Mr. Murphy, absolutely the most charitable way to interpret it, to his benefit, is this: if any two other Conservative MPs were to abstain of their own accord, without any prior discussions with the Liberals, then Murphy would assist in figuring out how they could "continue to contribute" -- from the Liberal backbenches, shurely.

And just a question: anyone spoken the words, "Let me phrase this in the abstract" recently, while attempting to be principled and straightforward?

Stuff to Think About Dept.

2005-05-31T12:06:00.000-06:00

1. Chris Selley is back from, uh, one of the -arias [Hungaria, I think - ed.]. Yes, Hungaria, thank you, and his return has been blazing. First, read his piece about teenage pregnancy (Coles Notes: it's a symptom of the root problem, not the root problem). Notwithstanding the issue at hand, I appreciated this widely applicable observation:

This sort of statistics-based fatalism denies the importance of personal choices and personal responsibility, and can only result in bad policy. You hear it all the time: "you have a one in X chance of being struck by lightning" is the classic example. But do I? Really? What if I never go out in the rain?

2. Selley repeats a protest (a slightly different version is noted here):

Why, why, why must these outrageously partisan organizations and their representatives constantly be edified in the press?

The context here underlines his point perfectly. Quoting the Elizabeth Fry Society that Karla Homolka doesn't belong in prison is insane, unless they're going to follow it up with a sentence like, "The Elizabeth Fry Society has never once said that any specific woman does belong in prison, so you can take their opinion for what it's worth."

[Note: I think the Elizabeth Fry Society, and the John Howard Society, perform a worthwhile service in advocating what is basically a contrary-to-public-opinion view about just how harsh prison should be. But per the above, I think their moral authority is compromised by their "nobody belongs in a cage" rhetoric.]

3. Colby Cosh's column in the National Post today should be required reading for all doctors and medical students. I had a discussion a few months ago with The Monger, and touched on the fact that a consequence of doctors becoming advocates for the government health care system (e.g. more funding) is that patients are increasingly coming to view doctors as agents of the state, and the doctor-patient relationship is being devalued.

Cosh comes at a similar argument from a different angle today, in the context of state-funded Viagra for sex offenders. What he gets at essentially (just buy a copy, OK?) is this: if doctors seek to have medical advice be valued as more than that (i.e. as something that ought to supersede all political aims, including public safety), then they can expect to have this advice challenged on political grounds, and again, the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship will be devalued.

Ahhh, concepts. What a delightful topic.

Whatever happened to unicycles?

2005-05-30T13:25:00.000-06:00

Via A Complete Waste of Time, we find this incredible shelving system for the computer geek who has everything.

The massive pricetag aside, I could never buy it, because I could never put anything on the shelves. I would be pathologically unable to look at it for more than 5 seconds without succumbing to the irresistible urge to rearrange the pieces.

(Some of the comments are groaningly funny, too: "the problem i have with these shelves is when your neighbour stacks them properly another block falls through your roof").

Arguing on the Enemies' Premises Dept.

2005-05-27T13:29:00.000-06:00

Here is a great example (ÞBBG) of how when you start arguing on the enemy's premises, you're half lost already. "The Amazing Wonderdog" picks apart the CPC childcare plan, the chief objection apparently being that it is insufficiently comprehensive, detailed, and/or focused to properly be called a "plan". On those criteria, the Dog is right.

A principled party of the right, when asked about their Child Care Plan, would respond thusly:

"We don't have a national child care plan, for the same reason we don't have a national breakfast cereal plan--because this is a free country, and we shouldn't be confiscating people's income in order to provide perverse incentives for people to eat what we think they should for breakfast."

"Furthermore, our involvement would make cereal cost more for everyone, whether or not they are personally paying the bill."

"And on top of all this, there is absolutely no widespread popular demand for the federal government to get involved in the breakfast cereal business, except insofar as if you ask, 'Would you like to pay less at Safeway for breakfast cereal?', most people would say Yes."

Regrettably for some of us, there is no principled party of the right in Canada. Kudos to Aaron Lee Wudrick in Skippy's comments (the 2nd one, anyway) for at least raising these principles, though achieving apparently zero impact.

POSTSCRIPT: I thoroughly enjoyed this snippet from an old Reason story, dredged up by Nick Gillespie in his weekly bitch-slap of Sen. John McCain:

Some years ago, a newspaper sent me to interview S.I. Hayakawa, by then a retired senator from California. Hayakawa was legendarily combative: Asked once during a campaign stop what he thought about a local referendum on legalizing greyhound tracks, he snapped: "I'm running for the U.S. Senate. I don't give a good goddamn about dog racing."

Such anger--I wonder how he ever got elected?

Oh, just look at it

2005-05-26T13:08:00.000-06:00

I've made a few additions to the blogroll. The London Fog and The Tiger in Winter are two very good Canadian blogs that I've ignored for far too long. I've also added Punditry By the Pound and The Agitator. Gene Healy seems enjoyably grumpy, as exhibited here.

Radley Balko is rather prolific, and has been fighting the good fight on a couple of fronts, most notably of late hammering on the U.S. DEA for (1) targeting doctors and pharmacists who prescribe pain medication and (2) either bragging about it or denying it depending on the audience.

On a lighter note, today Balko points us to the Phallic Logo Awards. Possibly not safe for work, if you work in a church or amongst many nosy pre-teens. My only comment is, despite the quality (and hilarity) of the nominees, no judges in the history of contests have ever had such an easy time picking a winner.

"I Love That Thing That Happened Five Minutes Ago"

2005-05-25T12:58:00.000-06:00

Conan O'Brien, on the future of television (ÞWalker):

However, these minor setbacks will soon be overshadowed by a stunning scientific achievement: Mars is finally explored and colonized simply because it's an even cheaper place to produce television shows than Canada. Producers cheer this cost-saving move but, typically, some New Yorkers complain when the latest "Law & Order" series depicts Manhattan as having a jagged red landscape and two small moons.

Leno can't retire fast enough.

"Jury duty? I'll see that Quimby kid hang for this!"

2005-05-25T12:34:00.000-06:00

It's not often I find fault with the guy at the top of the Mandatory Reading section of the blogroll--in fact I give him plenty of gloss--so I ought to take this opportunity to say that maybe Bruce Rolston was right, and Colby Cosh's bullshit detector needs new batteries.

He comments here on the question of "whether the Conservatives [won] by losing last week's non-confidence vote in the House of Commons". I don't have an opinion on the broader question, but I find his interpretation of this Decima poll as a data point to be pretty nonsensical. Here's the results in discussion:

Respondents were asked which of three reasons (a list was read to respondents) was most likely to dissuade them from voting either Liberal or Conservative. The results show:

There are two leading reasons cited for not voting Liberal, [the] feeling that it is time for a change (29%) and disagreement with Liberal policy (27%). Discomfort with Paul Martin as PM trails these considerations, at 17%

The leading point of resistance to voting Conservative is the desire not to have an election right now (31%), followed by disagreement with Conservative policies (25%), and close behind, discomfort with the idea of Stephen Harper as PM (23%).

The glaring problem here (i.e. why I find this poll meaningless) is that saying you won't vote Conservative because you don't want an election right now is a flat-out non-sequitur. Say you're on a long-haul bus trip, and the driver stops late at night for food in a small town where Subway is the only place open. You may be pissed at having to eat a sub or nothing, but that's not a reason (good, bad, or otherwise) to say that you're not going to get it toasted.

The only flaw in this analogy is if you believe the notion that the 31% of non-CPC voters above would actually vote for someone else entirely because it was the CPC's "fault" that they're going to the polls at all. I guess this is where the BS detector comes in; I don't find this plausible at all.

But on top of that, there's no need to stand purely on political instincts here, since we have had minority governments before. In both 1974 and 1980, the party that "caused" an election (the Liberals in both cases, roughly two and one years after the previous election, respectively) went on to win a majority.

If that's not enough, imagine if Paul Martin stood up today and said he was calling an election. According to the results above, that 31% would ostensibly vote against the Liberals, and the CPC would win a massive majority. What-everrrrr.

Lastly, Cosh's remark here...

..the Liberals' main problem ("time for a change") is only going to get worse..

...is a bad assumption; of course there are voters who may decide next month, or next year, that the Liberals aren't doing such a bad job after all, and choose to stay the course. There are a few people who hold the non-partisan, non-policy belief that "change for the sake of change" is important for the vitality and honesty of government. Is that principle fundamentally underlying the intentions of fully 29% of voters who wouldn't vote Liberal today? I don't believe that for a second.

As a fan of House MD should know well, "Everybody lies."

Too clever to leave in the Babbler's comments

2005-05-24T15:58:00.000-06:00

Well, not really, but here's a riddle:

Me: "Hey Peter, what's the difference between party principles and election promises?"

Conservative MP Peter Van Loan: "I don't know."

Me: "No shit."

I quite liked this one from N = 1, where apparently I am a Full Professor:

Knock knock

Who's there?

Belinda.

Belinda who?

What, is it 2006 already?

And one more for the road:

Q. What did one billionaire say to the other billionaire?

A. You're out of Peter Mackay's league. And isn't this chocolate Semi-Freddo divine?

I don't think Frank J. is looking over his shoulder quite yet.

Reviewing Roundup

2005-05-24T14:10:00.000-06:00

I loved this graf by Lileks:

“Team America” was made by 17 year old boys who cut class to smoke cigarettes. “Star Wars” was made by a sophomore who was bumped ahead to the senior class because of his smarts, but never fit in and spent lunch hour drawing rocketships in his notebook. “The Incredibles” was made by 30 year olds who remembered what it was like to be 16, but didn’t particularly care to revisit those days, because it’s so much better to be 30, with a spouse and a kid and a house and a sense that you’re tied to something. Not an attitude; not some animist mumbo jumbo, but something large enough to behold and small enough to do. “Duty” is a punchline in “Team America”; it’s a rote trope in Star Wars that has no more meaning than love or honor any other word that passes Lucas’ cardboard lips. But it meant something in “The Incredibles,” and all the more so because no one ever stopped to deliver a lecture on the subject.

You should read it all, as contrary to what you might glean from this bit, he likes them all. I think his characterizations here are spot on, although that may be because I'm 30 with a spouse, kids, house, and that "sense". As well, I should confess I haven't seen any of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, though I'm familiar with the plot of The Phantom Menace thanks to Weird Al's The Saga Begins. (Gratuitous Weird Al quote: "I've always been a fan of Don's, and it was a real honor to be able to record the 2nd funniest version of American Pie ever, right behind Madonna.")

Here also is Evan Kirchhoff's entire review of Revenge of the Sith, titled "A GOOD THING ABOUT THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIE":

...is that nobody at the end says, "And this, at last, represents a new hope...in these, our star wars". Although you know that was an earlier draft.

More entertaining still are Kirchhoff's video game reviews, having attended "E3", which appears to be some kind of tradeshow/geek heaven.

I have zero interest in video games. In fact, I have never played any version of Nintendo (or PS or XBox or whatever) in my entire life. This fact did not prevent me from enjoying his post tremendously. My favourite would have to be his take on the Chronicles of Narnia, for Gameboy:

I played a little girl in a dress (Lucy, presumably) wandering in a mysterious snowy landscape, with an "A" button for jump and a "B" button for kick. I was approached by a faun, one Mr. Tumnus, who rapidly broke down and blurted out his story about a White Witch whose spell had been cast upon the once green and pleasant land. I tried to kick him repeatedly in the groin: B B B B B B. The game tediously refused to acknowledge this attempt. He asked me to shove some boulders out of a path, even though I was a tiny weak girl and he was at least eight pixels taller than me; after another frustrating round of B B B B I gave in and cleared the path, which allowed us to walk into his home, where I went around unsuccessfully trying to break stuff (B B B B B).

I think this game would be sort of like a heavily-abridged book on tape where the author made you solve an arithmetic problem before hearing each passage. On the other hand, it was fun to imagine going back in time to tell my young self reading the book that one day it would be reconstituted on a lightweight, portable electronic device with an animated color screen where I could knee Mr. Tumnus in the 'nads.

Hooray, I now have a new "life meme" (relaxation mantra, whatever). Whenever I encounter someone in everyday life who is irritating me, I'll just think to myself, "B B B B B B", and my worries will melt away. Thanks, Evan.