Cocoa Puff Conservatism

What a great comment in the National Post network on the unintended negative effects of well-intentioned government regulations. Focusing on Quebec's ban on advertising aimed at children, William Watson makes a striking case for conservatism and non-interventionism in the market.

Cocoa Puff Conservatism - a highly recommended read, also because he teaches at my same university :)

Intentions aren't evidence in a Court of History.

Murky Liberal lobbying money

The Chronicle Herald provides a very interesting article on the relationship between unregistered lobbyist Dingwall and Canada Post. The Crown Corporation will not reveal why it paid in excess of $200k to a lobbyist, and it excised information from databases that could be accessed via Free Access to Information law.

An agreement between a State company and a shadowy unregistered lobbyist that states "As per our discussions of last week, we would like you to advise us on the political and social implications of . . ." is fishy.

In 2005 testimony before the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship program,
Mr. Clermont testified that Mr. Dingwall’s political adviser at the time, Warren
Kinsella, repeatedly called Mr. Clermont to request that the Crown corporation
hire certain Liberal law firms and advertising companies. Mr. Kinsella has
disputed Mr. Clermont’s claims.

They've been hiring each other, cheating the Canadian public out of money and covering their tracks, non?

"You’ve got two deans of the Liberal party," Mr. Williamson said. "One is hiring
the other. It looks awful, particularly since, at least in the public eye, they
were both forced out of their positions because of inappropriate actions. In
both cases, their careers did not end on a high note in terms of transparency
and accountability."

Who's naughty now?

Let's all move to Greenland

Terrific Timesonline article on the road Greenland has embarked on. Secession from Denmark is now a prospect, but not only is this the most commonsensical secession I've ever contemplated, but Greenland would be shielded from some of the hottest enviro-fascist arguments we are peddled everyday.

The plan, which has been drawn up by a committee of politicians from Denmark and Greenland, envisages the phasing out of subsidies from Copenhagen as the huge island makes increasing use of its rich mineral and oil resources under a thick layer of ice.

Under the terms of the plan the country would eventually keep all the revenue from mineral and oil exploitation. To begin with the islanders will be allowed the first €10 million earned each year from the country’s resources. When it starts to earn more than that – if and when multinational energy companies invest – the Danish subsidies will be capped. By the time Greenland earns €800 million a year, the money from Denmark will stop. There would then be no obstacle to independence.

Doesn't this sound like one of the most enlightened independence paths ever? No animosity, no rampant blind nationalism, no nonsense. Just nplain economics and development. The two parties cannot agree on some key policy aspects, e.g. seal hunting, therefore it's best if they began to part ways.

Not only Greenland is a good experiment in commonsensical nation-building, but the new-born nation may be quite exciting to live in.

when Greenland makes the final break it will rank as one of the most politically incorrect states in the international community.

Whalemeat figures large in its traditional cooking and its hunters enthusiastically track down some of the cud-dliest animals on the planet, including polar bears, seals and walruses. Even the seats of the lounge at Nuuk airport are covered in seal skin.

As for global warming, Greenlanders cannot get enough of it. [...] “It will improve fishing and above all make it easier to drill for oil and gas. The US geological survey calculates that the greatest unused oil reserves on Earth are in the Greenland waters – and they are in the east, where the ice is melting fastest.”

A nation that drills holes in its own sea to exploit its natural resources, agrees to phasing out government subsidies, hunts whatever it wants to hunt and actually likes the idea of ice melting?
I Love It!

McGuinty on a sales trip

Globe and Mail reports that Dalton McGuinty is popping into Turin for a chat with the Fiat big honchos, to discuss the possibility of the company "making at least one model of the Alfa Romeo sports car before 2012". This choice is unadvisable for several reasons:

1) Fiat is in troubled waters anyway, with closures throughout Italy
2) If Italians don't buy Fiats, there's a reason. They blow.
3) Demand for sports cars is restricted, more so in Canada where snow isn't exactly a rarity
4) The timescale of this investment is too long to save the auto industry in Ontario

Leaving aside these considerations, McGuinty is also (according to the report) in talks with China, India and "folks in Germany". VolksWagen, however, already narrowed down the choices of its North American plants to three US locations. That should sound a few alarm bells, there's something wrong in the way the Ontario auto industry and labor are regulated.

Furthermore, why talk to the same China that can build the cars at virtually no cost (with contributions from Laogai slave camps) and cram them into a ship? Who in their sane Chinese mind would open up shop with higher wages, labor union bother and a meddling provincial government? Talks with India can lead somewhere, but the same considerations about labor price, unions and regulations come into play.

This makes no sense.

CBC misleading on CAIRS

I have nothing against the way the CBC reports stuff, except what common sense point to as plain wrong. Reporting what you want to say instead of what actually happened is quite an art. However, this piece of reporting takes the biscuit! The title itself is ambiguous, suggesting that the Government has actually SHUT the CAIRS database. The article continues:

The federal Conservatives have quietly killed an access to information registry used by journalists, experts and the public that users say helped hold the government accountable.

Although searching other people's research efforts can help people find documents, I do not see how keeping a database of requests for information is any more transparent than the actual acts allowing access to the information in question.

But did the government actually kill the database? Certainly not!

Last week, a notice to civil servants from Treasury Board stated that effective April 1, "the requirement to update CAIRS is no longer in effect."

What's there remains there. But civil servants will have more time to dedicate to actually serving the public rather than playing around with gimmicks. Of course the CBC distorts reality in its first lines in order to mask the truth.

They interview and quote their own journalist, David McKie, who also runs onlinedemocracy.ca, an information endeavor I actually commend. However, on the website itself the following "limitation" is posted:

Some large departments do not enter all requests which they have received into CAIRS. Consequently you should not assume that this is a comprehensive list of federal ATIA requests.

CAIRS is already incomplete. It will just get less updates, but the information will still be freely available. So why all the fuss?

Now, users mine the database to do statistical studies, fine tune phrasing on new requests and discover obscure documents — often using the information against the government.

What difference does it make for the CBC how the information is used? The info will still be publicly available, the various scandal-hunters will however have to toil a little longer and do a little more research to get their info. Maybe they'll also have time to think whether their story is actually a story.

The CBC should whine less about useless gimmicks and actually push for electronic indexing of all documents that are covered by the Access to Information legislation. And, if they're so concerned, get off their butt and create a database themselves.

No-one truly cares about solving the food crisis

Thailand abandons the nonsensical idea of a South-East Asian rice exporting cartel in favor of stimulating productivity (CBC).

Thai officials had proposed the idea of a cartel earlier this month in an effort to gain more control over skyrocketing rice prices

The day a cartel strives to keep prices LOW pigs will fly. The naivete (or slyness) of the Thai government amazes me. Such a syndicate would only drive producers into bankruptcy (unable to sell at market prices and afford derivative products), hardly a solution to the food crisis.

At the same time, farming subsidies in the US and the Common Agricultural Policy in the EU are still in place and nearly never called into question, the food aid agencies with overpaid employees have to buy the food on a distorted market and so the vicious circle continues. No wonder Senegal's President, Abdoulaya Wade, called on the FAO's abolition (Corriere Della Sera). Headquarters in Rome and the highest-paid employees in the entire UN roster are unmistakable attributes of a body genuinely committed to relieving the suffering of the hungry in Africa and Asia.

South-East Asian governments consider clenching the rice market with an iron fist. The always adamant EU and US pledge aid and whatnot while maintaining a perverse system of pricefixing. The embattled FAO perpetuates the vicious circle. Demand for food genuinely grows worldwide.

Meanwhile leftist anti-poverty anti-WTO anti-capitalist anti-GMO and anti-intelligence protesters deny the African nations (among others) the unmistakeable benefits of Genetically Modified crops that can actually reproduce, forcing those who starve into buying batches of seeds that can grow every year or into the fairtrade delusion. Organic farming, with its gross inefficiency, further steals agricultural land that could be used for producing more food more efficiently.

Who will care for the needy instead of their own backyard, privileges, comforts or sad delusions?

While people starve...

The UN is to get some sort of $1.877 billion repair and makeover on the inside. I wish it were the right "inside" though, and I really wish Reuters made a typo when quoting the figure.

The building housing the Secretariat is to be improved because some nasty stuff has been going on:

It has water dripping through its roof, toxic asbestos lining its ceiling tiles, no sprinklers in case of fire and erratic heating and cooling systems, leading to friction with New York City authorities.

The building epitomizes what's inefficient about the organization. Its decision-making process leaks from a million holes punched by vetos and old-style consensus politics, it has close to no means of intervening in a crisis, the cooling can't cope with the hot air (read: nonsense) the Organization's watchers have to endure and it can't heat up and be ready for action until a disaster is already consummated.

Ban Ki Moon shouldn't be inconvenienced by the "inconvenience" of moving his overpaid staff to some other overpriced NYC space. Having the entire bureaucracy scattered might actually give him some breathing space to reform the blue-clad behemoth he has the onus of heading.

The tough life of a skeptic

The Heartland Institute sent an educational package to over 200 Canadian schools, with material detailing the other side of the global warming debate. Without delving into an analysis of the content (because I haven't seen it), the words of a school teacher, interviewed by the Gazzette, kind of upset me:

"It took me a while to figure out what they were up to," said Eric Betteridge, who teaches at Hillcrest High School in Ottawa.

"I would be concerned because it was well written, and if somebody hadn't been aware of what the general consensus is among climatologists about global warming, you would begin to think, 'Wow, somebody's giving me the wrong story here.' "

Being afraid of losing people's minds unless they had been exposed to your arguments first is an unequivocal sign of weakness. Furthermore, the reference to consensus among climatologists (add an -ology to anything these days and you've got a PhD in it) is eery. Basically students in schools are expected to conform to a consensus of fallible mortal beings just because it's a consensus.

Global warming IS the wrong story. If the world's getting hotter, why does it snow in Baghdad? If this consensus tyranny wasn't enough, the Heartland Institute actually provides the letters schoolkids were encouraged to send to them by their teacher. They make a disturbing read indeed. Heartland's comment is simple:

Particularly troubling about the students’ letters, in light of the principles outlined in the official Science Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten through Grade Twelve, by the California State Board of Education (2004), is the children’s utter certainty that they know everything there is to know about global warming, that there is nothing left to learn.

One wrote, “We’ve read article about global warming. And we know all the facts.”

Another said:

“Natural disasters have quadrupled in 20 years, 53 bird species face extinction, World must fix climate in 10 years, Air pollution shrinks fetus size. THIS IS CAUSED BY GLOBAL WARMING!!!”

'Nuf said!

Bill C-10 should have more balls!

Bill C-10 is to be a confidence issue, and sure as sunshine leftie film industry pressure will not be sufficient to grow the right attributes on Stephane Dion that'd make him vote the bill down. But C-10 doesn't go far enough.

I've seen my fair share of great classics and utter crap films. If you've watched Antonioni's "Zabriskie Point" you know what I mean by boring crap. Non-boring but utterly useless crap is epitomized in the latest "Rambo". But let's remain on topic.

The argument that Canadian film-making is mostly independent and thus dependent (oops) on government funding may well be correct. Comparing Bill C-10 to censorship is, however, wrong. Independent creative expression frequently has the task of provoking, challenging, questioning current lines of thought and current boundaries, including decency boundaries. How is a government supposed to discern between what's acceptable and what's not? Why, furthermore, should the government use its coffers to subsidize what's plainly not in its mandate? If the people wanted provocation and challenges they'd elect anyone BUT an incrementalist Tory.

Perks for film-making should be scrapped altogether. The evolution of thought and perception have no place in a Government's portfolio; its course should be left for the people themselves to decide. Whatever you're filming, if it's good someone will see the opportunity and finance it. This would further encourage independent directors to explore topics that actually appeal to the public or are likely to generate elevated interest. With a private source of finance the director will find not only a moneybag but also a fervent promoter of the movie (he will want to make money!). Where's the trouble?

Independent film-makers should cherish bill C-10 because it cuts into the interests of the great production industries, who have for too long relied on cheap and superficial effects and contents to provide us with dumb movies good only for pizza-and-beer communal procrastination.

New Labour's Britain

Where government peeks into the bedroom and regulates your fetishes.

I borrow the smalldeadanimals style to bring another bit of nonsense from across the pond. New legislation is about to be enacted criminalizing out-of-the-ordinary porn, because it is supposedly encouraging everyone who views it to commit the same violent acts depicted in it. The source is the BBC (here).

The tragic death of Jane Longhurst, murdered by a killer who frequently visited sites depicting rape and violent action, is being strumentalized by her mother to force ambiguous and dangerously vague legislation in a Parliament controlled by a meddling Labour Party.

But the government has sought to broaden the definition and the bill includes phrases such as "an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life".

So if it looks like it could hurt, it's banned. I am against violence in all its forms, and personally find the kind of porn this bill seeks to tackle very distasteful. However Mrs Longhurst is barking up the wrong tree.

The duty of government is to protect rights and educate about responsibility. It is our duty as free citizens to respect the rights of others, including their right to physical and emotional integrity. Whatever one gets turned on by is no concern of the State, what's important is this person not infringing someone else's right to own their body.

What does this new provision do? It deals with a distasteful kind of pornography very vaguely, in typical New Labour spirit of leaving the courts and human rights interpretations to sort out the mess. It does nothing to prevent the emergence of psychotic killers like the one who took Jane Longhurst's life. Nothing is done to educate people about rights and responsibilities, nothing is done to promote respect for the other, nothing is done to speed up the justice system and improve investigation techniques and tools.

This bill is nothing but hot air that will end up scalding all Britons who happen to be turned on by unconventional sexual imagery, not necessarily the result of abuse. Violence is violence, and there's enough laws to deal with it. If someone is abused jail the abuser, don't prowl people's bedrooms and sexual habits. Dealing with consequences instead of causes is a propaganda stunt that does nothing to improve your country.

To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she [Mrs Longhurst] responds with a blunt "hard luck".

"There is no reason for this stuff. I can't see why people need to see it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane's human rights?"

She's right about Jane's human rights. Her right to be free from harm was violated by a sick madman. Where does everyone else come into the picture? Engaging in a useless crusade will only drive those who get aroused by violence even more underground, further from the eye of those who could send a danger signal such as doctors, counsellors and investigators. Isn't that going to worsen the situation?

I wonder why human beings always want to point the finger at something intangible and general, and refuse to dig deeper into the causes of these disturbing acts. They focus on what's flashy. Remember: if the explanation is too simple, it's wrong.