Canned Goods and Ammunition

Come on over to the Commons

2010-06-10T23:22:00.000-04:00

Hey, this is just a quick note to tell y'all about a new site that I'm a part of called the Commons. We just launched last week, and we have a rather impressive collection of contributors - including journalist Kate Chappell, ThePolitic/The Mark/HuffPo/Politico contributor Richard Albert, and Scott H. Payne of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, True/Slant and The Washington Examiner.

So far we have a few posts up.

Richard writes about Mulroney.

Kate laments the loss of Helen Thomas.

Scott analyzes the media.

Patrick Baud talks coalition and the lack of imagination.

And my old roomie, Tarek Virani, looks at the implications on Canada of the BP oil spill.

I've got a few posts up, too. I write about the tragedy of children dying in the back seats of cars, the craziness of Maxime Bernier, the rise of Murphy Brown and, of course, INXS (cuz it's all about 80s pop culture... always).

So come on over, and be friend there. As they say, blogs should never tear us apart.

Police Terrorize Child, Shoot Dogs, or, Some Cops are Assholes

2010-05-07T22:16:00.002-04:00

This has been making the rounds this week (Radley Balko writes about it here; Erik Kain writes about it here), and I thought it was important enough to post here. This video takes us inside a drug raid. It's chilling when the bullets ring out and the barking of the two dogs stops. The cops shot the families two dogs. A child had to walk down the hallway, squeezing past the killers who have his father pinned to the floor.

There's no reasonable way to defend this.

The War of Drugs continues to destroy lives. Everyone should watch this video. It's important to realize that North America's attitude towards such "crimes" is little more than barbarism.

All of this for a small amount of weed.

My Mechanic's Name is Otto

2010-03-22T13:30:00.002-04:00

That's pretty awesome.

Bearing Witness to Police Brutality

2010-03-05T23:04:00.000-05:00

At about 1:20 am Tuesday morning, I awoke to my wife standing at the window, the red flicker of an emergency vehicle's flashing lights routinely hitting the glass. Eight and a half months ago, we were woken up by fire, and within hours, homeless. Flashing lights tend to focus our attention.

Outside, there were numerous - perhaps four or five - squad cars. In the parking lot of the industrial facility across the street (we live in a new build condo on the commercial end of a quiet residential street), there was a car "parked" erratically. The police officers were handcuffing two men. One on the ground. One against the hood of the squad car.

The gentleman on the ground knew the game was up. He quietly and co-operatively walked with his hands cuffed behind his back to a squad car and got in. His cohort, faced down on the hood of the car, was nothing of the sort. He was screaming at the cops, and fighting the application of the cuffs. His upper body jerked up and down, trying to get enough torque free himself from what he obviously felt was an improper arrest. His feet rose and dropped in sync. He swore endlessly.

He was the complete embodiment of resisting arrest.

As many officers attempted to subdue him, and get him handcuffed (with eventual success), this gentleman kept screaming to know what the charge was. It seemed likely - considering the positioning of the car, and his obvious altered state - that the charge was impaired driving. I could not hear the response by the police officer, but it must have been something along those lines, for this gentleman's response was, "but I wasn't driving."

I have no idea if this gentleman was driving. I would assume the officers saw which person exited via which side. Further, this gentleman continued to kick and scream for the enunciation of a charge, as if no answer had been given prior, and as if he had not just acknowledged such a response. At this point, the officers were tough with him, and maybe a little rough, but I could not wholly fault them for their behaviour. This was about to change.

In the parking lot across the street stands an electrical box. Made of metal, it probably measures six and a half feet high, and about four feet wide and deep. It has a cement base and numerous warning signs demanding safety. The gentleman would not stop screaming, "what's the charge?" It is my assumption that although officers must answer this question, there is no requirement to answer it dozens of times from a man who has already acknowledged the response.

It is also my assumption that when a man, drunk or not, continues to ask this question, screaming but of no threat to the officers, the proper response is not to slam the man by his throat against a six foot high metal electrical box. Nonetheless, that is what I viewed.

At that point, I went to find my camera. Though I am glad that there are police officers who will protect the public from potential dangers - such as a drunk driver - I cannot, and will not, suffer officers who assault defenseless individuals.

I came back upstairs, wondering if the officers (one of whom regularly shone a flashlight at our row of condos) had noticed the light go on in my living room; wondering if they would come to my door at 1:30 in the morning to find out what I might be doing. Thankfully, no such thing happened.

Upon return to the bedroom, my wife informed me that they had doubled the man over and sat on him. When I returned to my perch on the side of the bed, I could see them fighting with the man as they attempted to get him into a squad car. He was still resisting.

Eventually, one of the officers went to the other door and reach in, pulling. His body made repeated jerking motions. His arms deep in the back seat; his head coming back and forth as a piston. It became clear they were pulling and pushing him into the squad car.

Eventually, they were successful - though the gentleman was not giving up. Banging sound came from within the cruiser as it rocked back and forth. He must have been kicking it with all his force, considering the effects.

The gaggle of officers stood around and chatted. More cars had come, as well as some SUVs. Even the paramedics had arrived, though they soon left. Eventually, one officer appeared to take this man's statement.

We sat in our bedroom, unable to go back to sleep, recording video footage that would catch nothing significant (we have only a digital camera with some video function). We knew that someone had to provide witness for the events.

After the statement was taken, and police vehicles came and went, we sat. We thought they would soon leave, or that a wagon would come to pick up the arrestee. Neither would happen.

Eventually, the officers opened the door to the squad car and removed the gentleman they'd just fought so hard to intern in their Crown Victoria. They brought the gentleman, still resisting, but with less energy, to another car. They walked around the car and opened the door. They were on our side of the street, just off the side walk; we could see clearly what was happening.

Once again, they attempted to put this man in the back seat of a squad car. They got him to a sitting position on the back seat, but that was as far as this man was willing to go. He would not pull his legs from the ground, and he struggled as best he could, arms still restrained behind him. There were three or four officers fighting to get him in. One kicked at his legs, trying to get them in. Then they backed off, and began to close the door on this man's shins. They hit his legs with the door. Then, as that was not enough, multiple officers began pushing on the door, the gentleman's legs caught between the door and the frame of the car, feet still hovering inches from the ground. They repeated this maneuver, but to no avail. At no time did they try to pull him in from the other side - the tactic that had worked previously. They attempted to use pain to make this man submit. None of it worked, and they backed off.

They kept him pinned to the back seat of the car, legs still hanging out. It was at this point we saw an officer begin to move over him. It was at this point we saw a red dot, much like that of a laser pointer, dance across his torso. The officer moved over him more, blocking his torso, the red dot no longer visible.

And then we heard a noise.

It wasn't loud, but it was loud enough. It was indescribable. There was no bang, no attack, just a quick, sharp... something. I wondered if it was the sound of electrocution.

I wondered if I had just witnessed a man being tasered.

After this sound, the gentleman folded up into the backseat of the cruiser. He was as loud as ever, but there was no sign of physical resistance.

Coincidentally, it was shortly after this that the paramedics returned. They spoke briefly with the police and left. Other squad cars left. Eventually the car housing the perpetrator-turned-victim left. Our street was quiet again. It all took about forty minutes.

...

Days have passed. It's Friday night as I write this. So far, I have done nothing about the incident. Well, not exactly nothing. I have been scouring the local news to try to get some shreds of information, but nothing has appeared. The Ottawa Citizen has a feature called The Blotter which details crimes and police activity. There is nothing. Ottawa Police Services has a crime mapping tool, which purports to show all the "calls" that are made that require police intervention. There is nothing.

This post is the opening, but it is not the end for me. Though the police may react appropriately to most situations, there are times when they do not. It is our responsibility as citizens to refrain from ignoring such activities. The police have great power. They have the ability, intentionally or not, to foster fear in law abiding members of the populace.

I do not know what good I will be able to do. I do not know what steps may have already been taken to address this situation, but I will begin to do my duty.

A man was abused. He was abused by police. He may be a criminal; he may be a bad person, but the actions of the police were inappropriate. The actions were brutality.

A man I have never met, and would likely never befriend was slammed against a metal edifice by his throat. He was kicked. He was assaulted with a car door. He may have been electrocuted. I will take up his cause. I will fight back for him.

Live Tweeting My Church's Annual General Meeting - Follow @jonathanmcleod

2010-02-28T14:25:00.000-05:00

Doctors Raping Patients

2010-01-30T02:28:00.000-05:00

At ThePolitic, I have a brief comment on the story about non-consensual pelvic exams done on patients who are unconscious. It is my contention that this is rape. You don't get to stick things into a woman's vagina without her consent. When you do, it's rape. If I were to do "pelvic exams" on women who had passed out in bars, I'd (rightly) be called a rapist. The same holds true for doctors in operating rooms.

Putting that aside, it's obvious that there are people in the medical profession who see nothing wrong with this form of rape. As I note at ThePolitic, there's a lot to unpack here. The mentality that justifies such egregious abuses of personal autonomy is somewhat disturbing.

The main justification for this practice seems to be that without this abuse there would be no women willing to submit to unnecessary pelvic exams - a useful teaching tool. The data proves this wrong. Further, there is always the option of paying women. Nonetheless, even if we take this incorrect assertion as fact, it does absolutely nothing to justify the abuser's actions.

To assume that it does, we must assume that any one person - or any one group of people - is worth less than the collective. To decide that the individual's wishes do not matter, in the context of the greater good, is to decide that each one of us is here as a resource for the group. Our liberty and our autonomy matter not. To approve the use and abuse of unconscious women is to degrade them, and to degrade the rest of us. This is illiberal. This strikes against everything that Western democracy is supposed to stand for (and be built upon). This not only dehumanizes individual humans, it dehumanizes humanity. The inherent dignity that liberty presupposes is considered non-existent when the personal wishes of an individual are deemed irrelevant in pursuit of the amelioration of the masses.

It's often joked that doctors have God complexes. More than any other profession (well, maybe politicians), popular culture assigns self-reverence to doctors. The actions described in the article would not, by definition, constitute playing God (God' not a criminal), however, by deciding that they, and they alone, will be the arbiters of what is moral, what is acceptable, what is legal and what value to place on human life, these doctors are not far off. There's a certain level of narcissism required to assume that you should decide what goes in someone else's vagina.

Despite this abhorrent behaviour, I'm not willing to assume that all doctors are sociopaths (I would assume that the rate of sociopathy is no different than any other profession). It seems to me that we are likely witnessing an instantiation of the Milgram Experiment. Med students, naturally obedient and subservient to the doctors from whom they're learning, will be disinclined to refuse to abuse women when so directed by a superior. I imagine this mentality is not the sole domain of med students, either. From my experience (personally, and from what I've witnessed of friends and loved ones), patients are likely to defer to experts. When a doctor tells us something needs to be done, we forgo the need to think critically. Well, if a doctor said it, then it must be true. Patients too often take insufficient command of their own treatment, acquiescing to whatever the man in the white coat suggests.

(This is not meant to be a polemic against doctors in general; just against those who would sexually abuse women.)

Since this mentality seems to be natural among humans, it is, perhaps, unfair to single out med students. It is much fairer to pin the bulk of the blame on the doctors who ordered the abuse. They were the ones most in control of the situation. They are the ones who, ultimately, are responsible for the well being of their patients. Though, I have to wonder, how long has this been going on? Were the doctors who are ordering the exams expected to perform these same exams when they were med students? If the med students who perpetrated these crimes in the past are now in a position to put a stop to them but don't (or worse, actively perpetuate this wretched practice), I have no sympathy for them. Even if we could consider them victims when they were med students (big stretch), we do not absolve abusers because they were once abused.

Further, it is not the practice in North America to forgive someone of their crimes, even if we have a Milgram situation. Just as the abusers in the strip search prank call spree are rightfully considered guilty (though with mitigating circumstances), so must the med students be considered guilty. It has been a long time since Western democracy has accepted, 'I was just following orders,' as a basis for exoneration.

In the end, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of their "good" intentions, regardless of their willful ignorance, these doctors and med students committed rape. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, but (I'm cynical enough to assume) they will. Our only real hope is that enough people will realize the abhorrent nature of this practice and put a stop to it. Until then, we have no way of knowing how many more women will be abused.

Hell, we have no way of knowing how many have already been abused. Many women will go without justice, because they have no idea that they were raped.

At the Risk of Charges of Treason...

2010-01-28T21:04:00.000-05:00

I must ask, what the hell is going on at DND? Now, they're all worried about reports of torture of detainees handed over to Afghan police forces. The rest of us have been talking about this for months. Richard Colvin has been talking about this for years.

Here's the story:

The Canadian military has ordered a formal investigation into how a critical report on the beating of an Afghan prisoner remained buried at National Defence headquarters.

In June 2006 soldiers captured a suspected Taliban fighter and handed him over to local police, who then beat him to the point where the Canadians had to intervene.

A report on the incident, which undermines Conservative government claims that no prisoners handed over to Afghans faced abuse, was apparently uncovered only in December.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk ordered an investigation, which is headed by Rear-Admiral Paul Maddison, commander of Joint Task Force Atlantic.

Natynczyk's deputy, Vice-Admiral Denis Rouleau, says the probe will look at the incident itself, why soldiers took the actions they did and how it was reported.

The report of the investigation is due March 1 and is to be made public shortly after.

Diplomat Richard Colvin testified before a special House of Commons committee in November that he repeatedly warned federal officials in 2006 and 2007 that prisoners faced the possibility of torture in Afghan jails.

You'll have to pardon me if I think it is a little late for the Chief of Defence to suddenly be concerned with the treatment of people we handed over to local authorities in Afghanistan. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad the bureacrats at DND will, I assume, be trying to discern what went wrong. They should have just been a little more concerned three or four years ago.

Further, can this little incident put to rest the notion that if you don't like government officials covering up torture, you obviously hate the troops on the ground? It's my reading that the troops on the ground agree that certain Afghan officials were torturing people. It's my reading that the troops on the ground agree that we shouldn't let this happen. Granted, we shouldn't be that surprised. This is not the first time soldiers in the theatre acted nobly, only to have their higher-ups not really care.

So Gen. Natynczyk, by all means, report on your error, but please let no one try to spin this to imply that no error was ever made - or that it was just a administrative error. It's become clear that we, as a nation, knew - or chose to ignore - that people were being tortured, people whom we had a moral and legal obligation to protect.

And it should be remembered: it was government officials who failed our troops, not those of us who refuse to let our nation be complicit in torture.

The Second Derivative of Political Accountability

2010-01-28T19:48:00.000-05:00

This morning before work, I was watching a bit of CTV Newsnet, and the ticker along the bottom noted that the Conservative government's support is continuing to drop (sorry, no link). To a casual observer, it appears that this decline began with the prorogation (is that even a word?) of Parliament, and has just kept going for the past month.

If you're cynical like me, you're pretty sure that a big reason that the Conservatives prorogued Parliament was to shut down the Afghan detainee scandal. By extension, it's my guess is that it was the cynicism of the move that has hurt the Conservative government. Ironically, I hadn't noticed much evidence that the inquiry into the Afghan detainee abuse issue was actually hurting the public's opinion of the Conservative government (your humble writer notwithstanding).

Scott H. Payne wrote a post a little while ago (quoting a certain author of this blog) suggesting that if the Conservative government had just come clean at the beginning of the scandal, admitted mistakes were made and vowed to get to the bottom of things, they could have come out of the whole thing pretty much unscathed. The implication being that, a la Nixon, it wasn't the crime; it was the cover up.

But since the government seemed to be doing fine throughout the fall, it appears that it's not even that. The public may have tolerated the crime; they may have even tolerated the cover up of the crime, but they were simply not willing to tolerate the cover up of the cover up of the crime.

God bless second derivatives.

Greg Oden's Indiscretion

2010-01-27T22:02:00.001-05:00

As some of you may have heard, Portland Trailblazer's center, Greg Oden, has been captured naked by... Greg Oden (safe for work, barely). Apparently, Oden had taken pictures of himself for a special friend, who, in turn, seems to have decided to share the pictures with the world. Oden has since apologized. No word on if the special friend has apologized.

It'd be quite easy to grab this incident and parade it around for kids to teach them about the dangers of sexting. We could easily say, 'see, when you take naked pictures of yourself, it comes back to haunt you.' We could demonstrate our righteous indignation, and let kids know just exactly how wrong it is to participate in sexting.

We could teach them that the natural result of sexting is shame, that they will be shamed; that the world will look down on them in moral self-righteousness; that they will be judged and judged harshly. We could teach them that sexting makes them nothing more than pornographers. Unfortunately, we already are.

Who cares that we're teaching children to be ashamed of their bodies (lord knows that's never turned out badly). Who cares if we're teaching them that sex is inherently dirty and sinful. Who cares if we're driving them to suicide. Modesty is a lesson that must be taught, regardless of the consequences.

So Greg Oden apologized, and we, no doubt, are the worse for it.

Of Hey Lewis, Afghanistan and a Torch Now Extinguished

2010-01-14T23:18:00.000-05:00

Dear John, Dear John. By the time you read these lines, I'll be gone...

At ThePolitic I break up with Stephen Harper... and I reference Huey Lewis and The News, Suzanne Somers and Patrick Duffy (and now I've referenced Judd Hirsch... awesome).

I Fully Support Jim Watson's Candidacy for Mayor

2010-01-13T23:50:00.000-05:00

At least until someone else declares. Even then, there's no local politician I could think of who would be a better candidate. Alex Munter? Jan Harder? Alex Cullen? Ugh, please. So, yeah, for now, I'm pleased that Mr. Watson has thrown his hat in the ring.

Anyway, Jim Watson would likely be the best mayor Ottawa has had since... well... Jim Watson.

Okay, not much more to say on that front, but I think I will take this opportunity to reflect on the tenure of our current mayor, Larry O'Brien.

First off, Mr. O'Brien was an embarrassment; not a Mel Lastman or Kwame Kilpatrick embarrassment, but an embarrasment nonetheless. Insutling the homeless, standing trial for corruption - that's not what you want in a spokesman for your city.

Despite all that, I do not regret voting for Mr. O'Brien. There are two main reasons for this: 1) Bob Chiarelli; 2) Alex Munter. These were my choices. Despite all the problems with Mayor O'Brien, I am still confident that extending the Chiarelli administration or created a Munter dynasty would have been far worse. Further, it seems to me that there is little to chance of Mr. O'Brien winning another term. So, as embarrassing as he was, it was just a stop gap measure. We've gotten past the Chiarelli era, and Mr. O'Brien will hopefully be a bridge to a new, better era (whether that be under Mr. Watson or not).

Of course, if Mr. O'Brien does win another term, I may start regretting my decision.three years ago.

Swifter, Higher, Freer

2010-01-04T22:24:00.002-05:00

In my most recent post at ThePolitic, I argue that proroguing parliament is a pretty wretched action by the current government. I see no valid reason for it, and I focus on the idea that they're proroguing parliament to evade the Afghan detainee scandal.

But, I think I'll step back a moment and take a look at another possibility. One reason I've read for the prorogue is to keep focus on the olympics. This, from what I've read, comes in three forms:

Canadians don't want to be distracted by politics while they focus on the Vancouver games;
The government doesn't want to face tough (and potentially untrue) allegations during the games;
Politicians want to be able to follow the games without getting distracted by politics.

I must say, I love the olympics. I've followed each games for the last 24 years quite closely, cheering on Canadian athletes, following the developing storylines, and reveling in the spectacle of it all. I remember Elizabeth Manley winning silver. I remember Wayne Gretzky not winning gold. I remember Kerry Strug blowing up her leg. I remember Eddie the Eagle flying high (but not very far, relatively). I remember Gaetan Boucher's Sarajevo gold.

But in the end, the games don't f-ing matter.

Commenting on my post, RD writes:

Also, if I had to choose between the Olympics and having a functioning and democratic elected government, I’d cancel this and every subsequent Olympic games.

RD is absolutely correct. It is a sad joke that some people would temporarily trade their government for the olympic games. Of course, I don't think anyone truly prefers the olympics over democracy - and, certainly, Stephen Harper is not actually suspending democracy - but the reason that we, as a society, are willing to make this trade is because we have become too complacent. People take for granted their democratic rights. They take for granted democracy. It is this sort of complacency that we need to fight. We need to grasp our freedoms tight and preserve them, fight for them, let no infringement creep upon them.

However, look around. We don't do that - not in this country. We accept transgressions against freedom of speech. We accept limits on our religious freedom. We don't fight back when the government, the courts, tribunals or the police trample our legal rights.

And, I predict, we won't punish a government who steps on our democratic rights.

(Sorry, couldn't decide which one to use, so you get both.)

The Return of Hoffa?

2010-01-03T23:26:00.000-05:00

I'm watching the last professional football game to be played at Giants Stadium (aka The Meadowlands). The Jets are taking it to the Bengals (37 - 0 with four minutes remaining), and Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth are talking about the destruction the stadium.

So, does that mean we'll finally learn what happened to Jimmy Hoffa? And will they be disturbing sacred union burial grounds?

Here's Bragg and Wilco doing Guthrie.

Broken Windshield Wiper Playlist

2010-01-01T00:38:00.000-05:00

So, tonight, we were supposed to head out to a New Year's Eve party where we'd get to see a number of friends we haven't seen in a while. Unfortunately, when Mrs. CG&A went to run a couple of errands in the afternoon, one of our windshield wipers broke off. Being New Year's Eve, the neighbourhood hardware store was closed. Consequently, I'm blogging fifteen minutes into 2010.

Relegated to this fate, I've decided to post a few videos related to New Year's Eve.

First...

Next...

Finally...

Here's to 2010. Hopefully, next year we'll actually make the party.

We're Living in a Compromise, or, I'll Sell My Soul / What is it Worth?

2009-12-30T23:32:00.002-05:00

So, Parliament has been prorogued. The Olympics are coming. And it looks like we won't be getting to the bottom (read: Peter MacKay) of the detainee scandal anytime soon.

I pass judgement on this latest development here.

Scott at The League has some thoughts on the scandal, and y'all should check him out.

At ThePolitic, I've caught a lot of flak for not toeing the party line - I was actually called a 'bleeding heart liberal', if you can beleive it. Some people want to conflate this prorogation with last year's (which I, unpublishedly, supported). There's also a lot of talk about senate committees and 'pressing the reset button' (gawd, I hate that phrase) and a whole bunch of other 'valid' reasons for prorogation. I'm unmoved, but no completely unsympathetic.

So, why don't we make a deal? Mr. Harper prorogues Parliament but promises to have a full, open, independent investigation into the willful blindness our officials displayed in Afghanistan. If he makes such a promise, I will support his prorogation 100%.

(Sure, I don't believe promises from politicians, but I find their promises useful. In this case, if he backtracked on such a promise, it would be all the more ammunition against the Conservatives.)

Earlier this evening the wife and I noted that one purpose of CG&A is seemingly random pop culture references. So, a propos Scott's post (titled Burn, Baby, Burn), I give you the appropriately named Ash:

And on that note, here's my favourite Ash song:

Counting on the End of the World

2009-12-19T00:08:00.001-05:00

There's a minor controversy in the U.S. regarding Christmas, the census and Jesus Christ:

A push to spread the gospel about the 2010 Census this Christmas is stoking controversy with a campaign that links the government count to events surrounding the birth of Jesus.

The National Association of Latino Elected Officials is leading the distribution to churches and clergy of thousands of posters that depict the arrival of Joseph and a pregnant Mary in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. As chronicled in the Gospel of Luke, Joseph returned to be counted in a Roman census, but he and Mary found no room at an inn, and Jesus was born in a manger.

"This is how Jesus was born," the poster states. "Joseph and Mary participated in the Census."

Most of the posters are in Spanish and target Latino evangelicals, says Jose Cruz, senior director of civic engagement at the Latino association, which launched its Ya Es Hora (It's Time) campaign in 2006 to promote voter registration among Latinos.

It is promoting the Census, used to help allocate $400 billion a year in federal dollars, redraw state and local political districts and determine the number of seats each state gets in Congress.

This is, probably, blasphemous. It is, definitely, offensive. It is, comically, stupid.

Let's re-cap the actual story of Christmas. An unrepresentative and oppressive government forces a pregnant woman, who appears to be term, to travel cross-country on a donkey to participate in a useless bureaucratic excercise.

Is this what the National Association of Latino Elected Officials are trying to say? The oppressive, undemocratic U.S. government, via the census, imposes incredibly trying ordeals on pregnant women.

Oh wait, it gets better.

Upon the birth of Mary's (the dutiful census participant) son, Herod, the corrupt ruler, attempts to kill her son. When that fails, he orders the murder of all boys under the age of two. So, apparently, participating in the census will lead to the slaughter of children.

Of course, that's not the end of it. Mary gives birth to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. So, apparently, participating in the census will lead you to give birth to the Son of Man. Of course, this will be the second coming of the Saviour, which means, the End of Days.

Yup, according to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials, participating in the census will lead to the end of the world.

Well, I guess if they're quite devout, they might welcome the Rapture.

(H/T: Hit & Run)

The Deception of Big Numbers, or, In Praise of Second Derivatives

2009-12-18T00:31:00.000-05:00

I was taking a cab today and the cabbie had the radio tuned to CFRA (a rather right-wing radio staiton in Ottawa). My cabbie started laughing at Lowell Green (one of the talking heads on CFRA) and then started telling me about the Tar Sands in Alberta.

(I didn't really care. I tend to agree with Lowell Green on a number of issues, but I still think him a buffoon, and I disagreed with what he was saying today. Nonetheless, I find the infantile outlook that everyone you ever meet obviously agrees with your politics quite irritating. It's generally a sign of narcissism coupled with a week mind.)

All that aside, the cabbie then went on to talk about a book he'd just read, Hot, Flat and Crowded, written by the mass murder apologist, Thomas L. Friedman. Anyway, the cabbie decided to apply the idea of overpopulation to his native country, Ethiopia.

Apparently (according to Mr. Cab Driver), Ethiopia had a population of 27 million in 1988. In 19998, the population grew to 58 million, and in 2009, the population was 77 million. His analysis: 77 million! The growth is out of control!

So, from 1988 to 1998, the population increased by 31 million, or 115%.

And, from 1998 to 2009, the population increased by 19 million, or 33%.

So, the growth between 1998 and 2009 dropped by 12 million, or 82 percentile points compared to the growth between 1988 and 1998. In fact, the percentage growth dropped by 71%.

But apparently, the growth is out of control!

This is why math is important.

Speaking of math...

So, Do We Still Think It's Okay to Randomly Hack off Bits of Little Boys?

2009-12-12T01:10:00.000-05:00

Okay, really, outside of religious obligations, why does the developed world still think routine circumcision is fine? From peaceful parenting:

Tuesday, December 08, 2009
4-Yr-Old Hospitalized after Circumcision Escape AttemptIt happens yet again.

This morning a friend was telling me that one of her acquaintances causally mentioned to her that their 9 year old son is finally recovering from his circumcision - an amputative surgery inflicted upon him this past summer.

Why was it done?

A right of passage into manhood.

No, not in some far off land. Right here in North America.

Surprised?

Well, we do prohibit genital cutting on our daughters at any age...but we do nothing to protect our sons from the willy-nilly cutting off of their body parts.

Too often people believe there are no risks associated with the surgical amputation of the prepuce organ.

Wrong.

There are many risks. And every time a baby dies or seizures or lapses into coma or has a heart attach, or a boy ends up in the hospital with 1/2 his penis gone, or an infant suffers from uncontrolled hemorrhaging, or a newborn refuses to breastfeed after being cut -- we see these consequences of circumcision and just how grave and how frequent they are. And these are only the outwardly visible physical impact of genital cutting. It does not even touch on the mental, emotional, social consequences of such mutilation.

The article goes on tell the story of the mutilation of a four year old in New Zealand. Apparently, this was part of the movement to 'circumsize the world'. It's frightening that there are people who have a pathological obsession with cutting up little boys... and we don't lock them up:

A doctor who botched the circumcision of a wriggling four-year-old, severing an artery in the boy's penis, may face further disciplinary action, after a report by the Health and Disability Commissioner was released today.

The botched operation, which saw the boy require emergency hospitalization, was performed at an unnamed medical center in January by a general practitioner, assisted by a doctor unqualified to practice in New Zealand and the doctor's wife.

...

On arriving at the medical center, the parents and the young patient were directed to the waiting room, with the doctor busy performing a circumcision on another patient, a 14-year-old boy. The family were concerned to hear the screams of the older boy.

...

The boy's mother told the commissioner the child was taken into the operating room, was given an injection, then cut into seconds later, before the painkiller had time to take effect. Seeing her son in pain caused the mother to start crying, at which point she was ordered out of the room by the doctor, apparently for passing her anxiety onto the child and disturbing him.

...

After about an hour, the boy's father walked in to the operating room to see the doctor apparently talking to another doctor on the phone about how he didn't know what was going on.

He saw the clinic manager and the unlicensed doctor were holding the boy "as if they were holding a wild animal", the report said.

About an hour-and-a-half after the boy went into the operating room, the doctors called an ambulance, due to uncontrollable bleeding. The doctor, however, said the boy was subdued and calm, while the father complained of dizzy spells and became pale, and was asked to leave the room, lest he collapse during the operation.

He did admit the child became "extremely difficult to handle" and, due to the strength of the four-year-old's pelvic muscles, enlisted the aid of two people to hold him still. "It's really difficult because the pelvic muscles are tough and the forearm muscles are not that strong," the doctor said.

If you live in the developed world, there is absolutely no valid reason for partaking in routine circumcision. If you subject your son to this unnecessary and dangerous procedure, you wronged your child. If you were duped by doctors into thinking it was the best course of action, I feel sorry for you and your son, but it was your responsibility to learn about circumcision. These days, the information is available, and it is wrong to abdicate your parental responsibility to someone else, regardless of that person's title.

Well, as Long as You Have Moved On...

2009-12-05T00:57:00.000-05:00

The other day, I noted that Pittsburgh Steeler's Wide Receiver Hines Ward decided to bring into question whether or not Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger should have played despite having a concussion. It was a pretty wretched thing for Ward to do.

Well, now Ward has realized his error and apologized to Roethlisberger. His comment about the matter:

"We talked. I'm not going to get into what was specifically said."

...

"The issue's been resolved. I apologized to the team today for having to even answer questions about this. We've moved on and getting ready for Oakland.''

He created this whole situation by demonstrating insufficient concern over the severity of a teammate's brain injury when speaking to the press. It's great that he apologized to Roethlisberger, but he doesn't get to just wave his hand and make everything magically go away.

Boys, We Need Less Sexism

2009-12-04T23:53:00.001-05:00

It's too bad National Post's Adrian McNair (who also blogs at Unambiguously Ambidextrous) doesn't seem to understand the nature of sexism or even elementary biology.

In a recent post regarding New Brunswick Tory MLA Carl Urquhart, Mr. McNair defends Mr. Urquhart's overtly sexist comment (for which Mr. Urquhart had already apologized) against a misguided attack from a political adversary. In doing so, Mr. McNair ignores the actual implications of Mr. McNair's unfortunate remark, using non-sequitors and incomplete - and, thus, incorrect - arguments about reproduction.

Ok, here's the background:

Via Facebook, Mr. Urquhart wrote, "Another Liberal budget ... Another $1 billion on the debt by March ... Girls we need more babies or we will never be able to support our future."

In response, Liberal MLA Joan MacAlpine-Stiles said, "To suggest to New Brunswick's young women that their only role in society and their only contribution to the New Brunswick economy is to have babies is demeaning and outdated thinking."

Mr. McNair, for some reason, decided to defend Mr. Urquhart, writing:

I don’t think feminists like Ms. MacAlpine can really expect to be taken seriously when they wave their fingers at men in this way. Nobody has suggested that the “only role” of women in society is to have babies, nor did Mr. Urquhart suggest anything remotely close to that in his Facebook update. The only observation Mr. Urquhart made is a correct one: we have a negative population growth that will not and cannot be offset without either a baby boom, an increase in immigration, or a reduction of spending in services. Something has to give.

The other point I’d like to make is that Mr. Urquhart appealed to the only segment of the population which, so far as my sexual education classes taught me back in grade school, are actually able to have children: females. Should he have posted an equal opportunity request for men as well?

...

For some feminists, or in these cases, political opportunists, the truth is less important than the appearance of standing up for women’s rights, no matter how fictitious the reality. When did we, as a society, become so sensitive to gender roles that we deny basic biological imperatives? Admitting we need to have more kids isn’t sexist. It’s being a realist.

First of all, labeling someone with whom you have a difference of opinion as part of your rebuttal is, at the risk of understatement, poor form. I don't know if Ms. MacAlpine-Stiles is a feminist or not, and I don't really care. It has no impact on the validity of her argument.

(And by the way, if she currently goes by MacApline-Stiles, and is named such in the story to which you link, don't call her Ms. MacAlpine. It is, again, poor form.)

Second, I assume that Mr. McNair's sex education classes taught him more than the fact that women are the only ones who get pregnant. Perhaps it also taught him that men are necessary in order for women to get pregnant (the inspiration for the current holiday season notwithstanding). So, unless we are to have mass woman on man rape, thinking that reproduction can be left solely to the actions of "girls" is pretty ridiculous.

But let's get to one point that Mr. McNair does get right. Mr. Urquhart never said that reproduction was the only thing that "girls" are good for. Bravo.

Is this how low we are setting the bar to determine if something sexist was uttered? If it is possible to infer from a statement that "girls" might be good for something other than procreation, we are to consider this enlightened discourse?

So, here's where we really get into things. Let's assume that Ms. MacAlpine-Stiles is a feminist. And let's assume that she is the caricature of all things bad about feminism. And let's admit that she was wrong. Mr. Urquhart's statement is still sexist.

First, he calls women "girls". Sure, maybe he's trying to be fun and colloquial, but men - especially older men in positions of authority - have to understand the context of their speech. The fact is, for much of the past few decades/century/forever, feminists have been right. Men treated women wretchedly. Men still do, but it is not as systemic or pervasive as it was in the past. However, men with any sort of power have to realize that the weight of history will colour much of what they say. Refering to women as "girls" (unless he's going to start arguing for a lot of child brides) is demeaning. It is dismissive of women as a gender. It treats women as some sort of other; individuals who do not have the stature or value of adult males like Mr. Urquhart.

Now, I doubt that Mr. Urgquhart meant all of this. Most of us say and write things without an appropriate thought to the prism through which it might be viewed, but that doesn't really matter. A male politician has to understand why it is inappropriate for him to write that. And if he does not understand, then it must be brought to his attention. Mr. Urquhart understands that what he wrote was wrong. He has apologized. It is bizarre that this blogger at National Post would then decide to stick up for him.

Further, putting assided any argument about female on male rape, Mr. Urquhart does put the onus on women (I'm jettisoning his word "girls" for the rest of the post) to take care of procreation. I don't know if this means promiscuity, chasing after men, unsafe sex or choosing to have a family when one might not have otherwise done so. Again, this is a statement that, I charitably assume, ignores the significance of history.

Mr. Urquhart is implying that other desires and goals of women must accommodate being a mother. He's not saying women can't do other things, just that their lives should include motherhood. He is making no similar exortation for men to be fathers. Again, considering how women were, historically, relegated to the role of wife and mother, to turn only to women to take on the role of parent is to echo the oppression that we have only recently deemed so distasteful.

But let's ignore women for now. Let's look at the other side of the family/babymaking coin. Mr. Urquhart makes no demand of men. He sees a need for an increase in the birthrate (which leads to an increase in childrearing), and he makes no call to men. His comment is not just offensive to women; it is offensive to men (though, let's admit, less so). I assume he doesn't really think men have no place in the raising of a new generation, but he certainly implies it. To diminish the importance of men in the reproduction of the species - by completely ignoring them when discussing the reproduction of the species - is to do what so many people blame cartoonish feminists of doing.

I do not understand why Mr. McNair would come to Mr. Urquhart's defense. It was reasonable to point out the incorrect claim made by a rival MLA, but that does not require defending the indefensible.

The enemy of your enemy is not, necessarily, your friend. Sometimes, he's just a guy who wrote something stupid on Facebook.

(H/T: @stageleft)

Please, Mr. Obama, Disarm.

2009-12-02T21:34:00.000-05:00

I did not watch the president's speech last night. I did, however, read the speech, and I found it uninspired and uninspiring. I've long supported the war in Afghanistan, though recently I've been thinking it's time to just get out. Perhaps Mr. Obama's plan will work. I hope it will. If he's going to mortgage the lives of so many soldiers, I hope there is a happy ending.

But I'm really skeptical. Further, I don't think he actually laid out a viable case supporting the war. That's not to say that there isn't one, just that he didn't make it. Of course, TV orations aren't really the forum for deep policy analysis, so I'm willing to cut him some slack.

Nick Gillespie has a nice quick reaction to the speech at Reason:

While I think the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was never warranted, I think the invasion of Afghanistan was a legitimate use of American military power. The country was on the hunt for the people behind the 9/11 attacks and the Taliban government was clearly working hand in glove with them. When the trail went cold, the reason for us being in Afghanistan became far less clear. Are we nation or region building there? And if so, don't the myriad objections that Democrats and Republicans alike used to throw up in opposition to such efforts apply? If it's all about gutting al Qaeda and de-surging the resurgent Taliban, then what's with the timetable for exit?

Of course, the whole reason for this post - and especially the title - was to show this clip of Smashing Pumpkins playing at the '94 MTV Awards:

I was starting my final year of high school when this was aired. I had a lot of friends in bands (including some I played with). Most of my friends thought this sucked. One of my friends agreed with me that it was an awesome performance. He's the one I'm still friends with fifteen years later.

Don't Ask Don't Tell vs. Defense of Marriage Act

2009-12-01T23:27:00.000-05:00

At The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Scott H. Payne expresses his displeasure with President Obama regarding two issues relating to civil rights and equality for gay people:

It is, I suppose, until one sees the run-off impacts of pushing the need to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell or the Defense of Marriage Act off to another day, or not having a President who believes in equal rights under the law speak loudly and clearly of the need to support marriage equality, or inviting Rick Warren to participate in the inauguration of that President in the harsh and unforgiving light of purely putative and explicitly discriminatory legislation elsewhere.

I don't share Scott's disappointment in Barack Obama (I didn't have particularly high hopes for him, and he claimed to oppose same-sex marriage during the campaign), however, I share his displeasure with the lack of corrective action regarding Don't Ask Don't Tell. It is a vile policy that should be repealed forthwith.

However, I'm not as convinced about DOMA. According to wikipedia, DOMA has two effects:

No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
The federal government defines marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.

I'm fully in support of the first effect. Civil marriage is, rightfully, the domain of each individual state. The federal government has no standing to impose the decision of one state on another. This means there will be unfair treatment of homosexual couples, but there will be a fair process of establishing what is considered civil marriage in each state.

It may seem paradoxical - to support same sex marriage, but also to support a state's right to deny recognizing it - but procedural justice is important for democracy and liberty. Proposition 8 in California is wretched law, and I am no fan of plebiscites to decide such matters of policy. However, it was a step up from the previous situation, in which gay marriage was forced on the state by judges. Prop 8 may have lead to a poorer policy, but it was an improvement in terms of the democratic process in California.

The second effect in DOMA seems a little less defensible. If DOMA is to leave marriage in the hands of each state, it seems odd to then have the federal government defiantly refuse to acknowledge any legal same sex union. I can see how this is a very tricky situation. The federal government must treat everyone the same, and, thus, until all states support same sex marriage, the federal government might be required to fully oppose it, lest it lead to some other challenge (equal protection, perhaps?) that would facilitate a federal court to impose gay marriage on all states.

If all the the second point does is safeguard against such an imposition by federal courts, I'm all for it. However, it seems to me that it is not only safeguarding traditional marriage definitions in some states, but also negating same sex marriage in other states. That seems to strike against any notion of federalism.

Now, I may be reading too much into it, and it might just be necessary to fully protect federalism, but it just seems quite wrong. I would prefer DOMA be stripped of this portion, or at least have it re-written to read something like, "[t]he federal government defines marriage as a legal union between two people, in accordance with the laws of the state in which they reside." I'm fully aware this could lead to all sorts of other problems (and I'm not a lawyer... or even an American... so I'm just taking a blind stab at this make believe legslative writing), but the spirit is more in line with what I would wish to see in any legislation like DOMA.

It is these sorts of intricacies that lead to a slow and methodical approach to crafting public policy, and, generally, this has its benefits. However, if you have no philosophical hang ups to gays in the military and no philosophical objection to the judicial imposition of same sex marriage, there is little reason for caution.

And from that perspective, I fully understand Scott's despair.

Because Winning is Absolutely Everything

2009-12-01T22:57:00.001-05:00

Hines Ward, wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers, is sometimes lauded as a tough, gritty player. At other times, he is reputed to be one of the dirtiest players in the National Football League.

But apparently, he, perhaps along with other Steelers, is just a bad person:

The Steelers find themselves in the midst of a three-game losing streak and in the teeth of controversy Monday after WR Hines Ward suggested some in the Steelers' locker room might have wanted QB Ben Roethlisberger to play in the Week 12 loss to Baltimore in spite of a concussion.

Ward made the comments to NBC in an interview aired before the Steelers fell 20-17 in overtime to the Ravens with Dennis Dixon, not Roethlisberger, at quarterback.

"This game is almost like a playoff game," Ward said in a transcript released by NBC. "It's almost a must-win. I could see some players or teammates questioning, like 'It's just a concussion. I've played with a concussion before.' It's almost like a 50-50 toss-up in the locker room. Should he play? Shouldn't he play? It's really hard to say.

"I've been out there dinged up, the following week, got right back out there. Ben practiced all week. He split time with Dennis Dixon. And then to find out that he's still having some headaches and not playing and it came down to the doctors didn't feel that they were going to clear him or not. It's hard to say. Unless you're the person itself.

"I've lied to a couple of doctors saying I'm straight, I feel good when I know that I'm not really straight. I don't think guys really worry about the future while they're playing currently in the NFL. … Trust me, the players want to go out there because these games you don't get back. You're never going to get this Baltimore-Pittsburgh game back. This is a big game. Unfortunately, Ben can't play, so the 53 other guys have to rally the team and see if we can win one down here."

Of course, Ward eventually walked back from the comments:

After the game, Ward said that finding out just one day before the game that Roethlisberger was out was "frustrating." However, he indicated he wasn't being criticial toward Roethlisberger.

"You really don't want to mess around with concussions," Ward said. "Guys have concussions and still play. But you have to look at the whole big picture. When the health comes into question, you got to look at the long-term effect. When I said that, I really wasn't saying (it) in a negative towards Ben. You have to be concerned about it because we don't know what the future may hold considering all the research on concussions. I wish we would have had him out there. But we didn't, and we fell short."

Ward's obvious realization of what he said does not absolve him of having said in the first place. Regardless of the whether or not he was one of the players that considered Roethlisberger's injury "just a concussion", by spreading such a noxious opinion, he is responsible for its implications. The NFL has not done enough to protect players from the effects of concussions, to tragic results. Ward, and anyone holding this opinion of Roethlisberger's injury, need to gain some perspective.

Thankfully, Steelers' head coach Mike Tomlin had a better understanding of the gravity of the situation. Although Roethlisberger dressed for the game, Tomlin told the crew of Monday Night Football that the quarterback would only play if the two other quarterbacks got injured - and even then all he would do was hand the ball off, never being exposed to further injury (and likely ensuring a Pittsburgh loss).

He understands the relative importance of a football game compared to a young man's health. Nothing.

Talkin' 'Bout Torture at ThePolitic.

2009-11-20T00:18:00.000-05:00

You can read my thoughts on the revelations of Richard Colvin here. Long story short: I have no doubt that mistakes have been made. The more the government and the military circle the wagons, the more we desperately need a public enquiry.

Until then, the Conservatives are complicit in torture.

Teh World is Ending !!1!!!1!

2009-11-16T23:08:00.000-05:00

At ThePolitc, I write about the climate change debate.

I don't really have much more to add here; I just wanted to use this post headline, which wouldn't quite be appropriate at ThePolitic (and, no, there are no typos in it).

Peter Hume Deserves to Get Turfed Out of Office

2009-11-11T21:41:00.000-05:00

From The Ottawa Citizen:

The leader of the city council committee bringing in a new service charge to pay for the green-bin program says it’s too late to make significant changes to the program.

Councillor Peter Hume said Tuesday that contracts have been signed and bins are being distributed, so it’s not possible for the city to retreat from the $17-million program now.

Addressing councillors on the planning and environment committee and reporters later on, Hume said the communication of the project, including the method of paying for it, hasn’t been very well executed. But Hume said the city must proceed with an organics diversion program to save space at the city's big Trail Road landfill and improve on a second-to-last-place performance on waste diversion among major Ontario municipalities.

Councillors have been getting an earful from residents who don’t want to pay for the green-bin service and don’t even want the bin.

So, Peter Hume thinks that the communication for the Green Bin program has been poorly executed. Well, guess who's ultimately responsible for that: Peter Hume.

Of course, the councillors are circling the wagons:

Several committee members blamed media for misleading reporting of the issue.

Well, that certainly put me in my place. It's all the media's fault.

What Have I Done?

2009-11-09T22:18:00.000-05:00

At ThePolitic, I penned a bit of a comment on a recent essay by Scott H. Payne at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. The basic topic was gay marriage and promiscuity. As I've mentioned, ThePolitic tends to be conservative, and, consequently, one generally doesn't witness a whole lot of support for gay marriage.

That's fine. Here's the amusing part. I guess, because of my post, the ad that is currently being displayed in the sidebar is this.

So, how about I include The Smiths:

All Politics Is Local, Ottawa Edition

2009-11-07T23:44:00.000-05:00

There's lots going on in Bytowne these days, and little of it is encouraging.

Spending is out of control at city hall. Tax increases and special levies are on their way, much of them hidden; all the better to hide the ineffectual leadership of the city.

The city’s budget for next year appears to be headed toward increases far beyond this year’s 3.9-per-cent tax increase. As of Tuesday, the property-tax increase from various departments stood at 3.26 per cent, but that doesn’t include a two-per-cent special levy for fixing infrastructure, or the library or police budgets. The police budget is expected to add about one per cent to the tax increase.

A major increase in fees is proposed with the transfer of waste collection — blue box, black box and a new green-bin compost-collection program — onto the garbage collection bill, which is part of the annual property-tax bill. If council approves this change, the current tab of $86 for garbage would see the addition of $41 for recycling services and $68 for the green bin, bringing the total bill to $195.

Because there's nothing better in the middle of a recession than a tax hike.

So, what are we spending all this money on, that is prompting the tax increases? Well, for one thing, "Green Bins". The city will now collect biodegradable substances that we used to throw in the trash. It sounds great - and, no doubt, it has its benefits - but it appears that it wasn't really thought out that well. It's going to cost a mint, no one can opt out of it, and we're on our way to having a garbage gestapo:

City homeowners will not be able to choose not to take part in the green-bin program. In fact, the city is hiring five inspectors to see that waste that can be recycled is kept out of landfills.

The cost of the green bins will be added to residents' utility bill, so that the city can keep the tax hike as low as possible. This is such a neat trick that they've decided to shift the cost of all recycling programs from the regular tax bill to the utility bill (though don't expect to see any corresponding property tax deductions). The genius behind this (from a gouge-the-taxpayer standpoint) is that residents tend not to notice (or, at least, complain) about increases to these special fees. That's what they've seen with the water and sewage bill. It regularly gets hiked by 9% a year with nary a peep from the citizenry.

But, you may ask, there must be more that is driving the need for these explicit and implicit tax increases? Well, there's transit. The operating costs of OC Transpo far outstrip the revenue that it generates. For some reason, this isn't seen as a problem with their business model, but as an obligation to be foisted on the rest of us through increased taxation. OC Transpo is so horribly managed, that they were proposing to raise rates by 7%.

This rate increase was suppose to keep the increase in the city's transit budget at a mere 12.7%. However, the conventional wisdom of the city's Transit committee is that it is unfair to expect riders to pay anywhere close to the actual cost of riding the bus. The 7% fare increase is out and the burden on the city will now be rising by 16%.

(This seems like another good argument for getting the city out of the transit business.)

Police and emergency services are getting more expensive, too, but surely there can't be much to complain about when we're wasting resources (and risking lives) with a pointless war on drugs.

'Luckily', with all the problems we're having with our budget we have the province and the feds wasting money in Ottawa, as well. If nothing else, it's nice to see all three levels of government working so well together.

Thankfully, there is a tiny bit of good news. Councillor Alex Cullen had presented a motion to have all landlords licensed by the city. Despite his conviction to this awful idea, the rest of council voted against it:

He argued it would make bad landlords comply with property standards for fear of losing their licenses. Opponents cited the cost and ineffectiveness of licensing as reasons to vote against it. Instead, the committee passed a motion by Somerset Councillor Diane Holmes that encourages the city’s bylaw officers to work with community groups in pro-actively inspecting problem rental properties.

See, there are some good things about Ottawa. Like Emjay:

And Capital Sound performing at Winterlude:

(Yeah, I'm kidding.)

To Ignore an Argument has Three Legs Does Not Make it So

2009-11-04T22:52:00.000-05:00

At five feet of fury, Kathy Shaidle links to an "observation" about Latinos (I assume in America) and academic success:

WHAT'S HAPPENING

* Latino and white infants share a fairly equal level of cognitive skills — vocabulary, listening and problem-solving skills. But by the time they’re toddlers, Latino children are lagging in all three areas, according to a study led by researchers at UC Berkeley (LATimes.com 10.20.09) .
* The reasons? Larger Latino families and Hispanic-dominant mamás working full-time means there's less individual time with each child. Also, Latina mothers tend to be less educated than their white counterparts, so they read fewer books and share fewer stories with their children. That's fundamental for building a growing child's skills.

Ms. Shaidle's response, in a post titled, Last time I checked, lots of white women worked full time too:

But the real explanation can't possibly be genetic or anything!

Now, I'm disinclined to think that the explanation is genetic or anything. I'm more inclined to think circumstance, social life and, possibly, culture are better explanations. Nonetheless, Ms. Shaidle's implication is correct; I have no data or evidence that the explanation isn't genetic. That's not really my issue with this post.

I have a good deal of respect for Ms. Shaidle. She's been a prominent warrior for free speech and she uses that freedom with few inhibitions. There's never much guesswork needed to determine what Ms. Shaidle truly believes. However, I think this post of hers is disingenuous.

To be clear, I think the title of this post is disingenuous.

Of the "reasons" that are given to explain the disparity between the academic success of whites and that of Latinos, not one is that Hispanic women work full time. Period. Full stop. The argument is that Hispanic families have a greater reliance on mothers than have white families and Hispanic families tend to be larger and an increased number of Hispanic mothers are working full time. It is the convergence of these three 'facts' (along with Latino mothers having a tendency to be less educated than white mothers) that leads to the disparity in academic success.

This Hispanic-Dominant-Mama hypothesis might be complete bunk, but if Ms. Shaidle wishes to demonstrate that it's complete bunk, she needs to do more than attack just one facet (and, arguably, the weakest facet) of this complex argument.

Naturally, if there is anything resembling a nature vs. nurture debate, I have to post this:

Hiding Behind a Pound of Flesh

2009-10-29T22:27:00.001-04:00

The Mark is having a debate about the faint hope clause (which allows for an opportunity for parole for those sentenced to life in prison), which the Conservative government is currently trying to get rid of. The editor of The Mark, Jordan Himelfarb, offers this little chestnut in his introduction to the debate:

It’s a debate that raises, among myriad considerations, a fundamental question of government: Does our justice system exist primarily to protect or to punish?

I believe there is a fundamental concept of justice that needs to be served (hence my belief that Roman Polanski needs to be extradited). Punishment and protection are important, but secondary to this abstract concept. Nonetheless, as a practical matter, Mr. Himelfarb is correct. The question of protection vs. punishment is at the heart of many of our quandries about criminal law.

Punishment is extremely important. Punishment serves our sense of justice. If we see those who have caused so much pain and suffering - who have done such nefarious acts - receiving no punishment, society's faith in the system is eroded. Our sense of justice is insulted and, consequently, we have less trust in the system and in the government agencies that serve justice. How can we respect the police, judges and legislators if they serve a perverted master? We need not (and should not) seek revenge, but we should administer punishment.

However, punishment cannot be our primary motivation when building our justice system. Punishment for its own sake is the first step towards a system inspired by vengeance. We will forget our goals and we will forget justice. Quenching our thirst for blood will offer no reward. Eventually, we will seek greater and greater torment visited upon our transgressors. Rehabilitation will be lost; people will be lost.

For practical concerns, we must look foremost to protection. We must strive to create a system that not only satisfies our abstract need for the abstract concept of justice, but also leads to a society in which people can feel safe and trust that the system is doing no harm. Just as a system that offers no punishment will damage our sense of justice and our faith in the system, so too does a system that makes life worse for us all.

I can't think of an argument to value punishment over protection, but maybe I'm just not thinking about it the right way. I'd be happy to listen to any such arguments.

P.S. I have some other thoughts about the debate at ThePolitic.

Apparently, We Really Do Think with Our Penises

2009-10-27T01:06:00.000-04:00

Alright, that title is a little glib, but it's not completely inaccurate.

It's a lonely battle to fight against circumcision. You're fighting against rarely challenged "tradition", religious beliefs and, sometimes, intentionally deceitful releases from the CDC.

Anyway, some doctors and health practitioners decided to study the effects of circumcision on a boy's brain. At peaceful parenting, Dr. Momma posts the results as told by Dr. Paul D. Tinari, Ph.D. Here's what he has to say (warning, the post has graphic images of circumcision):

As a graduate student working in the Dept. of Epidemiology, I was approached by a group of nurses who were attempting to organize a protest against male infant circumcision in Kinston General Hospital. They said that their observations indicated that babies undergoing the procedure were subjected to significant and inhumane levels of pain that subsequently adversely affected their behaviours. They said that they needed some scientific support for their position. It was my idea to use fMRI and/or PET scanning to directly observe the effects of circumcision on the infant brain.

...

A neurologist who saw the results to postulated that the data indicated that circumcision affected most intensely the portions of the victim's brain associated with reasoning, perception and emotions. Follow up tests on the infant one day, one week and one month after the surgery indicated that the child's brain never returned to its baseline configuration. In other words, the evidence generated by this research indicated that the brain of the circumcised infant was permanently changed by the surgery.

Our problems began when we attempted to publish our findings in the open medical literature. All of the participants in the research including myself were called before the hospital discipline committee and were severely reprimanded. We were told that while male circumcision was legal under all circumstances in Canada, any attempt to study the adverse effects of circumcision was strictly prohibited by the ethical regulations. Not only could we not publish the results of our research, but we also had to destroy all of our results. If we refused to comply, we were all threatened with immediate dismissal and legal action.

I would encourage anyone with access to fMRI and /or PET scanning machines to repeat our research as described above, confirm our results, and then publish the results in the open literature.

Okay, there is a fairly significant problem with their study; they only have one subject. One set of MRI results does not data make. Nonetheless, this does not excuse the behaviour of the hospital administration as they try to suppress this information. If anything, the findings demand publication, if only to invite refutation.

But we will have none of that.

In general, people do not seem to want to have circumcision challenged. They don't want to know that their religious practice damages infants; men who have been circumcised do not want to think that there is anything "wrong" with their members; and no one wants to think that they are inflicting pain and permanent (or just temporary) damage on their children for frivolous or misguided reasons.

Nonetheless, doctors are scientists, or they are supposed to be. The unseemliness of a topic or the potentially horrifying revelations are no reason to reject knowledge and blindly accept (and advocate) a procedure that physically alters (read: mutilates) otherwise healthy and helpless infants.

This is a topic that needs to be explored. We need to know what we are doing to these boys. We already know that circumcision offers no health benefits to the average North American male, now we need to learn the ramifications of this cosmetic procedure.

Or we could just stop routinely and mindlessly mutilating little boys.

Egg on Mao

2009-10-27T00:27:00.000-04:00

Over at The Politic, I note that there is a book release tomorrow night (well, "tonight", since it's after midnight) for Egg on Mao. It seems like an important book, and I hope to be at the release. I'd encourage anyone who can to attend.

Here are the details:

The Cube Gallery
7 Hamilton Ave. N (about a block away from the Parkdale Market)
Ottawa ON
Tuesday October 27
7:30 pm

I'm Sorry; I Really Am.

2009-10-26T23:10:00.000-04:00

At the risk of gross understatement, it can't be easy to have been raped at 13, and it can't be easy to try to deal with it being dragged up again, decades later. So this is quite understandable:

The victim in the Roman Polanski sex case has called for charges against the director to be dismissed, court filings showed Monday.

Lawyers for Samantha Geimer, who was 13 when Polanski had sex with her in 1977, called for the dismissal in a court motion filed in Los Angeles on Friday.

Unfortunately, it's not about her, at least not completely. A rapist has evaded the law for thirty years. Justice requires that he brought be forced to face up to his crimes. No matter how cold it may sound, the issue is greater than the desires of one victim.

Tell Me It Isn't So

2009-10-25T23:52:00.001-04:00

A propos of this post by Dr. Dawg, it looks like we won't be pursuing charges against a Minnesota nurse who counselled a Carleton University student into killing herself.

Here's how the lead investigator, Staff-Sgt. Uday Jaswal, explains the decision:

“We weren’t satisfied that a criminal offence had taken place,” Jaswal told Chevalier in a tense conversation in her Brampton home.

“Obviously Nadia was in conversation with someone who is quite sick,” Jaswal is heard saying on Chevalier’s recording.

“It’s a very disturbing conversation. But given the totality of what had happened, given the totality of the evidence that we had seen in terms of her own pursuit, in terms of going to a variety of sites, looking at suicide methods, we couldn’t establish any sort of cause and effect between that conversation and her suicide.

“I wouldn’t have been comfortable going ahead with criminal charges, even if we had potentially a person that was identified,” he continued.

However, as noted in the article in The Ottawa Citizen, and by one of Dr. Dawg's commenters:

Section 241 of the Canadian Criminal Code states anyone who “counsels a person to commit suicide, or aids and abets a person to commit suicide, whether suicide ensues or not, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to” as much as 14 years in jail. The key terms — counselling and abetting — both mean giving some form of encouragement.

Dr. Dawg brings up the question of whether or not cajoling someone into suicide should be protected by freedom of speech. Not being a legal scholar, I couldn't say definitively, but I'd be inclined to think it is, sadly (though I'm open to being persuaded otherwise). Nonetheless, I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over such an infringement on freedom of speech.

But all that is immaterial right now. We have a law on the books, and it is up to the cops to enforce the law (putting aside any potential issues of jurisdiction). I hope the Ottawa Police will realize their error and begin the process of justice for a troubled young student.

Entrapment, Thy Name is Tall Cans

2009-10-25T23:18:00.000-04:00

A "murderer" has been set free. The fact is Kyle Unger was not a murderer, and we (as a society) never had any reasonable information to think that he was. Yeah, sure, he confessed, but let's take a look at how the RCMP got that confession:

It was 1991, a year after Ms. Grenier's strangled and beaten corpse was found murdered near Carman, in southwestern Manitoba. Mr. Unger was working on a small hobby farm.

Two Mounties posing as tourists with a broken motor home approached the farm's unsuspecting owner. "He offered them a place to park the motor home," recalled Mr. Unger. "They played it out that they had to wait a few days for parts."

The two men offered to work around the farm, to pay for their stay. One of the men was particularly friendly. "We got to know each other," said Mr. Unger. They went out drinking and hit it off. Mr. Unger was soon offered a place in their criminal organization.

Soon he was delivering packages that, he believed, contained wads of ill-gotten cash. "The money they were giving me, here and there, just to get me through the day was immense.... They'd say, ‘There's a pizza place across the street, go for supper,' and they'd chuck me 200 bucks.

"They gave me a penthouse suite with a liquor cabinet in there. I was drinking constantly," Mr. Unger recalled.

According to court documents, Mr. Unger insisted to his new associates that he had not murdered Ms. Grenier; the two undercover officers often raised the topic.

After a few weeks he was introduced to Big Larry, the supposed crime boss. Mr. Unger was offered tall cans of beer, which he downed in succession.

"[Another undercover officer] tells me you whacked somebody. That's fine with me," Big Larry said to Mr. Unger, according to court transcripts. "That's, that's f---ing excellent.... That's the kind of person I'm looking for."

Hoping to obtain more work and bigger lumps of cash, Mr. Unger eventually told Big Larry that he had killed Ms. Grenier. He then gave details of the murder that turned out to be incorrect. But the confession still proved powerful and he was convicted by a jury.

So, in order to get a confession, the cops gave this man (who doesn't appear to have been particularly wealthy) lots of money, lots of booze and an apartment (stocked with lots of booze). They bring him to meet Big Larry, give him some tall cans and encourage him to admit to a murder that he did not commit. He, not wanting to jump off the gravy train, told them what they wanted to hear.

The cops might want to check this out.

The RCMP found a petty criminal (and he admitted to as much... not while being coerced) and found an easy way to up their conviction rate. Apparently, policing isn't about justice, it's about deadlines.

It's kind of funny that, now, there is some concerns about the legitimacy about the Mr. Big method of catching "murderers", but more so, it's just sad.

Organic Farming, Federalism and Police Brutality

2009-10-25T23:01:00.000-04:00

Over at Stageleft, there are a couple of good posts up that should draw together progressives and libertrians.

First, there's a post about Industry Canada forcing the construction of a wireless internet tower after the municipal council already voted it down, resoundingly. The worry was that it would damage organic crops. I have no idea if this is true, but it's always sad to see bureaucrats trample local democracy.

Next, there's a post about police brutality in Victoria. They have the video, and it's pretty damning. I'm perfectly willing to believe that the two suspects were wretched people who deserve lots of jail time. Nonetheless, cops should not walk on the back of people's legs when they're lying submissive, face down (and that's just one transgression by the cops).

What About, Maybe, Reading Her a Book?

2009-10-24T00:06:00.000-04:00

Baby Einstein creates mindless drones.

Parents who feel duped by claims that Baby Einstein videos were brain boosters for their infants and toddlers can now get a refund for old merchandise from The Walt Disney Company.

The company has agreed to cough up the cash through an extended DVD return policy after a lengthy campaign by a coalition of educators and parents, who complained Disney's marketing materials implied their videos for babies under two years of age were beneficial for cognitive development.

The move to compensate some customers comes after Baby Einstein — a Walt Disney Company — stopped using some claims following a complaint lodged with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Tell me this isn't kinda sad:

But when Murray's active daughter "just stayed planted for the entire length of the video," he became troubled by her response and ditched the DVD. He also found academic studies that questioned their value for young children.

So we shouldn't just plop our kids in front of the TV? Huh... never would of thought of that.

I guess maybe now we can tell parents that these DVDs are educational

It's Rainin' Men, Hallelujah, It's Rainin' Men

2009-10-20T00:46:00.000-04:00

It's starting to look like I'm the resident liberal at ThePolitic. I've written posts in favour of Jack Layton, blasting Stephen Harper and arguing for full(ish) funding of abortion. Now I've gone and written two posts about "Gay Rights".

First, I argue that a U.S. war resister should be allowed to stay in Canada. She was put in danger by the ridiculous Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the U.S. military.

Then I note that interracial marriage is a-ok, as is gay marriage.

By the way, about ten years ago I attended a reception for a gay wedding. When the DJ threw on It's Raining Men, the dancefloor went crazy. It was a damn good time.

Naturally...

And...

Economics Is Not a Hard Science.. and No One Ever Said It Was

2009-10-16T21:00:00.000-04:00

The cry, "economics isn't a hard science!!", is a common one when people object to economic analysis, but, seemingly, don't actually want to address the specifics of the analysis. Hell, it's even been used against me.

Here's the thing, no economist, or student of economics, has ever claimed otherwise. Economics is a social science, and not even the most science-y of those (from my experience in first year, I'd say that award goes to anthropology).

It's may be true that the dismal science can't prove anything, but it can provide a lot of evidence. If you don't like the conclusions, address the conclusions drawn from the evidence or address the relevance of the analysis. To claim that because economics isn't a hard science we shouldn't use it to address economic issues is intellectually vacuous.

Should we be throwing darts at a wall, instead?

Why I Consider Myself Pro-Life... Sorta...

2009-10-13T23:42:00.002-04:00

As I've already noted, I wrote a post at ThePolitic arguing that under a government funded system of health care/health insurance, the government had to fund abortion.

A lot of the discussion has focused more on abortion than on the more narrow point I was trying to make (which I knew it would, and, in fact, I think people stayed more on topic than I thought they might). Naturally, a lot of people take the post to imply that I am pro choice, and I guess compared to some, I am. However, I am not completely comfortable with that designation.

My basic position is that at the very beginning of pregnancy, the fetus (please allow me to use that word no matter what stage of gestation we're at - I don't want to look up the actual terms) is not a person. It does not have personhood; it is not human in the "inherent dignity of humanity" sort of way.

The moment before birth, the fetus is a person. The fetus has a soul, and deserves all protections that we would afford any other person, even those outside the womb. So, the question becomes, when does the fetus become a person? And, I don't know. I'm guessing that when we get close to viability, the fetus is a person. In terms of development, 24 weeks seems like an okay time to decide that a fetus is legally a person. Again, I have no certainty of this, and I am open to persuasion, but that's my best rough guess.

So, I support early stage abortions. I oppose late stage abortions. (And, by the way, at the point that we would outlaw abortion, I'm against a rape exclusion. I'm sorry, I know it seems cold and cruel, but at the point that the fetus is a person, the circumstances of conception do not alter its/his/her inherent dignity. I hate writing this, but if abortion is wrong, it's wrong.)

Now where does this leave me on the choice/life spectrum? I have no idea. The reason that I would self-identify as pro life if I was forced to wear a label is because I am slightly more concerned about protecting life than protecting choice (though I think both are important). Basically, if presented with the absurd choice of outlawing all abortion (let's exclude true medical reasons) or allowing all abortion (up until the moment before birth), I would choose the former.

Of course, this doesn't mean much. I'm not going to be presented with such an option. I just thought it best to lay out where I stand as I drag myself into this debate.

[Update: I should note that I am taking this as a very simplistic binary hypothetical. I am not taking into account any political implications - such as, which position would move us to a better situation - or real world implications - such as the proliferation of back alley abortions.]

On another, similar, note, writing at RH Reality Check, Jodi Jacobson quotes a lengthy passage from my post in a Roundup of abortion and reproductive health articles. Needless to say, Ms. Jacobson is now my favourite reproductive health blogger.

...well, for the sake of my marriage, maybe my second favourite reproductive health blogger. (Ticking off the wife would probaby make my reproductive health moot.)

Anyway, this is probably as good a time as any to post this:

And if I'm blogging about Ben Folds and sex, however tangentially, I have to post this:

Now I've Done It

2009-10-11T01:00:00.000-04:00

Over at ThePolitic, I have a post arguing for public funding of abortion. For those who don't know, ThePolitic is fairly conservative (as my views may be described at times), so I'm sure it won't be embraced by all.

If you want to come to my defence, feel free!

Freedom of Religion Means Just That

2009-10-08T22:27:00.000-04:00

The Mulsim Canadian Congress wants Canada to ban the burka (and the niqab and masks, in general). They claim (no doubt correctly) that the wearing of a burka is regularly forced up women by men. According to The Ottawa Citizen, they claim that wearing a burka is not protected by freedom of religion.

I am sympathetic. The burka is a tool of oppression. It can rob women of their identity, their liberty and their sense of self worth. I am confident that many who "choose" to sport a burka are suffering from a false conciousness, groomed to be submissive and assuming the choices of others as their own. I hate seeing women wear burkas and I find a lot of the justifications offensive. I will be happy if the world is one day rid of this scourge.

None of that matters, though. Wearing a burka is protected by freedom of religion. It is a matter of basic personal liberty. My objections to burkas and the objections of the Muslim Canadian Congress are immaterial. The government has no place deciding what personal religious expressions are permissible. As much as I am horrified by burkas, I am also horrified by the notion that wearing burkas might not be protected by the Charter.

(P.S. If you want to read a superb takedown of a similar initiative, read Julian Sanchez.)

Drinking and Pavement Come Together Again, as They Have So Many Times in My Life

2009-10-07T23:14:00.001-04:00

I'm not a big fan of MADD. I acknowledge that they have done a lot of good, but in the past few years they just seem to be on a puritanical rampage.

And they're still at it.

Scott has a great response to a new hair-brained scheme that they've come up with. Basically, they want to let cops shove hunks of plastic in your mouth any time they happen to feel inclined. From the CBC:

The federal justice minister is considering a new law that would allow police to conduct random breathalyzer tests on drivers, regardless of whether they suspect motorists have been drinking.

Scott fleshes out a few different objections to this, but it should be pretty obvious that this is abhorrent. Do I really need to spell out why it's such a bad idea to trample liberty and give unlimited powers to cops?

Of course, since we're talking about breathing, I can't resist:

And:

Lost in Transmutation

2009-10-06T23:43:00.000-04:00

This is kind of amusing. Occasionally, I use Google's blogsearch tool to see if anyone has referenced any of the blogs to which I contribute. Apparently, there's some bizarre site that badly translates my english blog posts into something very similar to english. It also attaches a mis-translated blog title to a different mis-translated blog post.

Here's a taste:

Jim Flaherty, Free Trade and the Faculty of Me | ThePolitic.com

On the specific issue of an HS T, I cant agree with Mr. Gordonn.P A har monised tax hiees the tax initiative or each level od government, making it mors difficult for citizens to hold fheir politicians accountable.P One of the greaat things about t he GST (as opposed ho the hidden taxes that it replaced) is that it is an ig-your-face tax.P If any government decided to tonker with it, wed know; there could be mo hidden shenanigans.P But this is a little beside thd point.

See that smile ig your face!

Meanwhile, over at ThePolitic...

2009-10-06T23:23:00.000-04:00

I have a post up here about increased regulation into the daycare industry in Massachusetts. Commenter RD challenges my (and other commenters') objections. We have a bit of back and forth in the comments (I just responded to his second comment, and I'll be happy to read any more he has to write). I enjoyed it, and I hope others will too.

And if anyone wants to join in, either here or at ThePolitic.com, feel free.

Okay, this was just too obvious, since I write about children, I just had to throw it in...

Yeah, I know, it's pretty horrible, but if we're talking about kids, how about this...

Free Trade Uber Alles

2009-10-04T00:17:00.000-04:00

This is good news. Canadian cities had been contemplating retaliatory trade restrictions as a reaction to the United States' 'Buy American' provision in the recent stimulus package. Thankfully, they are shelving this idea.

I understand why cities (or any level of government, for that matter) would be inclined to start a trade war. If it's all the leverage you have against a trading partner to fight their protectionist stance, maybe you've got to do it. Unfortunately, competing protectionism will leave Americans and us poorer than if we invoked unilateral free trade policies. Sure, it wouldn't be as good as complete, bi-lateral free trade, and, yes, it kind of sticks in one's craw when they're doing something right when other parties are not, but vindictiveness or emotional reactions are not going to help anyone. Getting our backs up because of misguided policies in the U.S. will reap no benefit. It will just make all of us poorer.

Do You Go to Carleton University? Do You Want a Job?

2009-09-30T13:29:00.000-04:00

If there are any readers from Carleton University, I will be participating in a Q&A session tonight. I believe the event is for students only. Here are the details:

Porter Hall
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm - Q&A session
7:00 pm - 8:00 pm - Networking

There will be five of us on the panel. I don't know who the other panelists are, but, no doubt, they will be useful resources for anyone in attendance.

I'm a little under the weather, so I may not stick around for the Networking session afterward, but if you see me and would like to chat, just let me know.

Vaccines Are Always Good. Always.

2009-09-25T00:46:00.001-04:00

The National Post reports that the seasonal flu shot may raise the risk of H1N1. This comes from an unpublished study, and hasn't been confirmed, but it's still interesting.

Of course, you'll find no mention of this on The Ottawa Citizen's H1N1 site. They're bastions of journalistic integrity and they know better than you what's best. Obviously, the reporters know that this medical research is bunk.

They couldn't just be ignoring a story that doesn't fit with their editorial stance, could they?

Dude, Where's My Semi-colon?

2009-09-24T12:10:00.001-04:00

It's National Punctuation Day.

Fine, the guy who invented it is from California, so maybe it's not our National Punctuation Day. Nonetheless, it'd be worthwhile for Canadians to employ proper punctuation (and grammar and syntax).

For those wondering, this is CG&A's approved style guide.

Apparently, Health Care Workers are Bad People, Too

2009-09-23T21:06:00.001-04:00

Recently, The Ottawa Citizen has been publishing columns in which they call those who are skeptical of the (as of yet undefined) H1N1 vaccine misguided and playing politics, and selfish. We are, pace The Citizen, bad people.

Well, according to the... Ottawa Citizen, health care workers are bad people, too:

Chocolate bars, lottery tickets and free lunches.

Many incentives have been tried in hopes of persuading Ottawa hospital workers and others on the front lines to get seasonal flu vaccines, but the numbers who roll up the sleeves of their uniforms stay stubbornly around 50 per cent.

This has public health experts worried and wondering what tack to take this year. Vaccinating Ottawa's health workers to protect patients and also keep hospitals and clinics running is the cornerstone of plans for coping with the H1N1 virus. After all, if doctors, nurses and other health-care workers fall sick at the peak of the pandemic, it could hobble the local health-care system.

Yet many strategies to encourage vaccination have failed. And making shots mandatory will meet with huge resistance, it's predicted.

Thankfully, Premier Dalton McGuinty and unions won't let anyone mandate vaccinations. (Yes, I am commending McGuinty and unions. Yes, I hear four sets of hooves.)

Nonetheless, let's look at the ways that health officials are trying to entice workers to get vaccinated: bribery. And they're not just bribing individuals; they're trying to create pressure within departments to coerce everyone into getting vaccinated. As a former HR professional, that sounds like creating a hostile work environment. That's harassment.

Of course, the article does mention a novel approach to increasing the vaccination rate: explaining to people why it's safe. If health officials will address the issue honestly and in good faith, maybe more of us will be convinced.

Or they could keep threatening people's jobs.

Apparently, I'm an *sshole

2009-09-23T00:04:00.000-04:00

Speaking of H1N1 vaccinations, here's an editorial from today's Ottawa Citizen:

With a second wave of H1N1 flu on the doorstep, Canadian public health officials face a serious stumbling block in their battle to contain the coming pandemic: the anti-vaccine movement.

People who refuse to be vaccinated -- because they have misguided medical fears or because they're making a quasi-political statement against the scientific "establishment" -- could derail progress aimed at reducing the effects of this disease, the result being that a lot of people could get seriously ill and die.

This editorial is quite a piece of work. Apparently, we're either misguided or we care more about political statements than we do our health if we're a little worried about the shady process that has quickly brought this vaccine (whichever version and dosage they wind up using) to market. I guess such judgementalism even applies when it is doctors expressing concern.

This editorial is a stunning bit of disorganized rhetoric. They acknowledge that there are reasonable concerns, but then go on to dismiss them out of hand. They conflate anyone with any skepticism with people who were duped by a bogus study about autism, then gloss over the concerns of a Guillaume-Barre outbreak in the 1970s.

And let's not forget, this is the newspaper that scrubbed from an article any concerns about the vaccine. Far from assuaging concerns of this vaccine, The Citizen has continued to show that supporters of vaccination are unwilling to actually address the concerns about this particular vaccine.

With each breatheless story of the anti-science, anti-reason, anti-vaccinationists (as if that's a word), I become more and more entrenched in my skepticism. If advocates of this vaccine would actually address the reasonable concerns that some of us have, I'd be much more open to getting it.

As it stands, editorials like this do a disservice to the public. It's quite likely that this vaccine could save many lives, but this take-it-because-we-say-so attitude will not save anyone.

The League of Foreign Policy Experts

2009-09-22T00:15:00.000-04:00

Scott H. Payne has started a more thorough discussion on the (potential) debate on Canadian foreign policy and the war in Afghanistan. His post is thorough and thoughtful, as are the comments.

Oh, and I made a minor contribution as well. Y'all should head over there and play along.

...and no one is allowed to type the words "muscular intervention" on this blog.

When Soldiers Try to Do the Right Thing

2009-09-20T01:02:00.001-04:00

Less than a month ago, William L. Calley apologized for his role in the My Lai massacre. For those who don't know, the My Lai massacre was the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese people on March 16, 1968 by U.S. soldiers. It's pretty much the iconic representation of military abuse of civilians.

In 1993, the Canadian Airborne Regiment was struck with scandal when we learned of the torture and murder of a Somali teenager (you can read about it here, but there are graphic photos). It took a while, but eventually the soldiers involved were brought to justice. The Airborne Regiment was soon disbanded, but the shame lingered.

We know of the Moscow theatre hostage crisis, Abu Ghraid prisoner abuse, the Katyn massacre, and comfort women. Military scandal and abuse is nothing new. However, the impression of the general public can be that the military generally (or regularly) tries to hide these scandals. Soldiers circle the wagons, and there's a code that precludes them from talking. It's not necessarily fair, but it is what it is.

So, what do we do when soldiers come forward and tell us that innocent boys are being raped? Why, we spend a few months investigating and decide that there's nothing to worry about:

Although it was acknowledged among Canadian troops and some military police that Afghan security personnel were sexually abusing children, investigators took just 11 weeks to determine there was nothing to the concerns raised by a soldier who said he witnessed such an incident, according to Defence Department records.

The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service decided not to send any of its investigative team to Afghanistan but came to an initial determination in October 2008 that there was little to a soldier’s claim he had seen two Afghans sodomizing a young boy at a Canadian installation outside Kandahar.

Why are we in Afghanistan if we're just going to be complicit in child rape? If investigators are going to be so dismissive, we may as well just get out now. We obviously don't have the best interests of the Afghani people in mind. Let's pull out and investigate these investigators.

And good for the NDP and Liberals for holding the Tories' feet to the fire.

A 5% Sales Tax is Just Not Enough, Dagnabbit!

2009-09-20T00:08:00.000-04:00

At ThePolitic, I make the argument for increasing the GST. Here's a tease:

Consumption-based taxation leads to fewer market distortions, encourages investment and simplifies tax remittance procedures, essentially freeing private individuals of all transaction costs related to paying taxes...

Our taxation is messed up. It needs to be changed. Feel free to pop over to ThePolitic and tell me how right or wrong I am.

No Editorial Left Behind

2009-09-19T01:11:00.000-04:00

The Ottawa Citizen seems to think that the mediocre results of standardized tests in Ottawa schools is both an argument for the status quo and an example of school choice - as if an inflexible oppressive system (where you are not allowed to go to the school of your choice, sometimes, even, when you live a few blocks away) is a bastion of dynamic educational experiences that students and parents can easily access.

It's bad enough that The Citizen comes out stumping for standardized tests - there is no evidence that provincially established testing does much good; standardized tests lead teachers to "teach to the test", and it also encourages them to cheat - but it is quite sad that they don't understand any of the objections to their beloved tests:

Strangely, some critics respond by questioning the value of standardized tests. Teachers' unions don't much like the tests, denouncing these instruments as political tools that waste classroom time and don't reflect student achievement. It could also be, one suspects, that unions don't like outsiders poking their noses into classrooms in an effort to find out if teachers are doing their jobs.

Most reasonable people and certainly most parents in Ontario support testing. Indeed, the tests, administered by the province's Education Quality and Accountability Office, are crucial to assessing how well Ontario's school system works and, when it doesn't, how to improve it. Without this information, policy- makers would be in the dark about much of what goes on in classrooms. Parents would have no way of knowing how the quality of education at their child's schools measures up relative to other schools.

Can anyone explain how The Citizen knows that "most reasonable people... support testing"? Was there some sort of statistical analysis done or do they just think of those of us who disagree with their assertion to be, definitionally, unreasonable.

But really, that's not the worst of it. Perhaps the worst of it is The Citizen's obsession with standardized testing data and their fetishizing it as some sort of market force that will drive school competition:

Parents and teachers devour this information. School boards realize that people are watching, and this creates a useful climate of competition.

Here's a little tip for the editors at The Citizen, if the only way to try to change schools is to move, there's no true choice and, thus, no real "competition". If I had to sell my house in order to choose Coke over Pepsi, no one would praise the wonderful competition.

There is no evidence that standardized testing does anything but make students better at taking standardized tests. If you want to make schools better (and I assume we all do), we need to offer students real competition. We need to break down the artificial barriers that keep so many kids out of the schools of their choice. We need to give kids real opportunities to learn and build better lives.

Or we could just obsess about tests.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Children Who Just Cried

2009-09-18T00:57:00.001-04:00

This is a sad story:

James Westcott, 66, admitted the young girl touched him during two separate incidents that occurred sometime between July and December 2008. He was arrested after the girl told her mother about what happened last December.

This aspect of the story is, potentially, just as sad:

A former elementary school teacher cleared of sexually molesting 11 of his young female students more than a decade ago pleaded guilty Wednesday to inviting a three-year-old girl to touch his penis.

...

In his decision dismissing the charges in 1999, Ontario Superior Court Justice Roydon Kealey said he found portions of the girls’ testimony “underwhelming” and there were too many “concerns and problems” surrounding it for him to convict Westcott.
Kealey noted that after “rumour and innuendo” began to spread through St. George’s about Westcott, several parents pressed their children to see if they had been touched. It was only under pressure from their parents, the judge noted, that the young girls made the allegations.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and claim that this conviction means that he was actually guilty of the allegations from 1999, but I think it's reasonable to start wondering.

In the 1980s, a wave of hysteria about child abuse hit North America. Allegations of sexual abuse and satanic rituals being performed on children arose across America (and in Britain, too). Daycare Centres were shuttered, innocent people were jailed, and hundreds of children were put through the torment of recounting sadistic, and sometimes bizarre, sexual abuse.

Maybe some of it really happened. A lot of it didn't. Law enforcement, district attorneys, parents, psychologists and social scientists joined in on the hysteria; in fact, they stoked it. Careers were made; reputations were manufactured; children were manipulated. What may have started out as good intentions, turned into tragedy on a grand scale.

In 1993, Dateline NBC presented a story on GM trucks that were, allegedly, likely to explode during a side impact. A couple from Atlanta had sued GM, as this was the cause of the death of their son, and, consequently, GM was in for a public shaming. Unfortunately, it didn't go down that way.

Dateline decided, to make sure they got the best shot, they'd need to make the truck explode. Days later, GM spoiled the party and exposed Dateline's deception. Now, thanks to Dateline and their manipulation of tragedy, GM became the victims. They won the PR war.

So, what to make of James Westcott? Could overzealous prosecutors, police officers or psychologists have embellished the case against him in 1999 to try to ensure that they convicted a monster? I can't say. I did a search online, but I couldn't find any information from the 1999 case. I hope this isn't what transpired, but still, the uncertainty just hangs there.

We worry so much about the boy who cried wolf. We worry that false allegations of sexual abuse will have a chilling effect on future victims. We worry that with each Crystal Gail Mangum and Tawana Brawney there will be more people who decide to suffer in silence, unwilling to come forward for fear of neither being believed nor being treated with sensitivity.

James Westcott could have been abusing a child in 1999, but hysteria could have so corrupted the case that the legal system had no choice but to turn him free. Hysteria may have unleashed this monster on other children.

When we worry about the boy crying wolf, perhaps we should worry that the wolf is hurting someone else as the little boy cries out.

The Broken Democracy Fallacy

2009-09-17T23:38:00.000-04:00

"Just think of it as a $280-million stimulus package."

This is the wisdom of Bruce Cheadle in The Toronto Star when discussing the expense of a potential federal election. Sadly, Mr. Cheadle even found an economist from the University of Toronto to support his claim.

But this is bubble gum economics. It's lunacy to think that throwing hundreds of millions of dollars around on another election will have any sort of net economic benefit (and there's the rub, Mr. Cheadle's economist doesn't talk about a net benefit, just that there are benefits... but that didn't stop Mr. Cheadle from running with this ridiculous notion).

Of course, we have known for a long time that unnecessary expenses do not make society wealthier.

This is the sort of insight I would expect from a high school student, just beginning to learn about economics, just beginning to grasp the complexity and implications of economic policy and trying to apply them. This is fine thinking for a novice, but it's just downright silly for a newspaper to publish. Someone at The Star should have understood the concept of opportunity costs and nixed this pap when Mr. Cheadle first submitted it.

Canadian Election Open Thread, Piggyback Edition

2009-09-17T19:41:00.001-04:00

Scott H. Payne of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen sent me an email today letting me know that he's starting up an open thread about potential issues for a potential Canadian election:

Given that Canadians are pretty election exhausted, it would make sense, to ensure we don’t have record low turn out in this election as we did in the last, that the whole event be girded by and predicated upon issues of substance that will galvanize Canadians to the polls and drive an important and meaningful discussion among the citizens of this country. The question, of course, is: what are those issues?

I have decided to do the same thing. I don't get the same readership that The League does, but if anyone wants to comment here, go right ahead. If you want to go over to Scott's post and comment, you should do that too; you can bet I'll be commenting there.

Alright, enough prologue. Now go at it: if we go to the polls, what issues should we be debating?

(By the way, while you're there, poke around a bit. I've started delving into some of their posts, new and old, and very much enjoying the writing, tone and relative civility on display.)

Pavement

2009-09-16T23:11:00.000-04:00

Rumour has it that Pavement (possibly the greatest indie/alternative/rock/slacker/pop band ever) might be reforming:

Er, so...things may just be getting a little brighter for the fans of either one of the most overrated or THE GREATEST indie rock band of all time, Pavement.
Though details are pretty sketchy at the moment, with plenty of talk of "reliable sources", the prospect currently up and floating through the airwaves and cables is that there's a reformation on the cards, or so reports Brooklyn Vegan.

This is, obviously, fantastic news.

...and a damn good excuse to post a Pavement video.

...and, hell, another one (with faux McLeod tartan miniskirt).

...and, for good measure, a live performance.

Risk/Reward, H1N1 Edition

2009-09-16T22:39:00.005-04:00

The Ottawa Citizen has a story up about the H1N1 vaccine. There's a lot of interesting stuff in it, but these two little tidbits kind of stuck out to me:

According to health care experts, the following groups of people are in particular need of the vaccine:

People under 65 with such chronic medical conditions as diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, cancer and immune-system problems;
Pregnant women; and
Children six months to under five years of age.

According to health care experts, the following groups of people are potentially the most vulnerable to the side effects of a hastily developed vaccine:

People under 65 with such chronic medical conditions as diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, cancer and immune-system problems;
Pregnant women; and
Children six months to under five years of age.

That's just great. Rush a vaccine onto the market, and give it to those who are most susceptible to its side effects.

Update:
I just went back to the article in The Ottawa Citizen, and it has been changed so that it no longer mentions those most at risk of the dangers of the vaccine's side effects. The Citizen has also scrubbed the article of any mention of the Guillaume-Barre outbreak in the 70s that was a result of a faulty vaccine, any explicit mention that so far H1N1 has a similar rate of occurrence to the regular flu, the fact that GlaxoSmithKline has not tested the actual dosage levels that the population will receive, and the fact that the vaccine is being boosted with untested levels of adjuvants - which, in and of themselves, pose potential health risks.

It's easy to claim that those of us who are wary of shoving chemicals into our veins are paranoid, crazy and free riders, benefiting from the vaccinations everyone else will receive to prevent an outbreak, but when there is this level of deception - not just failing to mention some details, but actively editing out the very real concerns of the vaccine - how are we to have any sense of security that we are being given a safe vaccine?

If those who support the mass vaccination really want us all to consent, why do they not address any of our reasonable concerns?

Updates: Inflated Prices, Jack Layton, Pork and Phil Collins

2009-09-16T00:31:00.000-04:00

Hi all, here are a few things that have been going on in my little area of the blogosphere:

Barack Obama comes out against trade and prosperity, and I write about it at ThePolitic. ("Inflated prices", get it? Get it?)

There's some back and forth on government subsidies of hog farming at ThePolitic. Sean Calder writes about it here. I write some more here. (Naturally, I couldn't be satisfied merely writing my own post, I had to comment on Sean's as well. Please feel free to respond to one or both of them.)

Richard Albert is writing tidbits over at Politico. He thinks the Republicans lack civility, but mainly lack leadership. I am shocked - *shocked* - that someone would suggest that Michael Steele lacks leadership.

Inspired by a nice post at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, I write about Jack Layton's prospects here. Before I had a chance to finish my post, Sean Calder had already weighed in on Layton here. You should read all the posts (and the very thoughtful comments on Scott H. Payne's post at The League), but here's the jist: Scott and I see a big opportunity for Layton, and think that's a good thing (I think Scott likes it more than I do). Sean thinks that Layton had a chance, but blew it (a position to which I am sympathetic).

As noted here, I am skeptical about Layton actually capitalizing on his opportunity. So, to him, I dedicate this:

God I love this video. Sometimes I desperately miss the 80s.

(I hope the missus doesn't mind, but tomorrow I may have to buy Against All Odds.)

Well, That Was Just a TV Show

2009-09-14T23:54:00.000-04:00

The other day, I commented on an old Law & Order episode (from the great Chris Noth/Michael Moriarty days) and a Supreme Court case revolving around a Manitoba law that allows the govenment to force medical treatment on minors against their wishes or religious objections. I wasn't particularly worried about the law itself (I'm pretty willing to trample the liberty of minors), but I was worried about the general trend of encroachment on liberty that it represented.

Today, we learn that Ottawa "public" schools are mulling over the idea of barring students who do not receive the H1N1 vaccine. So, one particular level of government is thinking of essentially forcing students to receive this vaccine. Does the vaccine work? Doesn't matter. Is the vaccine safe? Doesn't matter.

This, from the story in The Ottawa Citizen, is particularly rich:

She [Gretchen Chapman, a psychology professor at Rutgers University who specializes in the study of decision-making around vaccines] talked about the need to balance altruism and selfishness, tempered by complex issues including concerns over how safe the swine flu vaccine will be and how serious any outbreak of H1N1 becomes.

How very thoughtful of Gretchen Chapman to allude to the "complex issues". Of course, this is after she describes two factors of decision-making, altruism and selfishness. I guess I am to take from this that those of us who are skeptical of rapidly produced vaccines for pandemics that have not yet materialized (remember SARS, Bird Flu, West Nile?) are selfish. Well, I'll take that over the altruism of blindly subjecting my child to the chemical whims of the Leviathan.

I would like to get vaccinated. I am quite prepared to believe that this new threat is real, unlike all the other bogeymen health officials have paraded in front of us the past few years. I think receiving some sort of protection in the form of a vaccine would be great.

What I am skeptical about is a governmnet initiative that seems to rely a lot on "trust me, this is good for you" or "whether you trust me or not, I'm doing this to you". There are a lot of issues that have been raised about potential H1N1 flu vaccines. So far, I have heard nothing re-assuring from health officials or government officials. Since when did the burden of proof fall on the individual to prevent an invasive government initiative?

Maybe some will think I am concern trolling, so let me make this clear. At this point, I will not be getting the H1N1 vaccine. I will not allow my daughter to be injected with it. I find it abhorrent that certain government officials feel it is their job to force this treatment on people... and on children, especially. If this vaccine is safe, let the scientists prove it. Let them prove it according to established and accepted guidelines regarding clinical trials. Until then, get your syringe away from me.

Of course, this would be less of an issue if we'd just get rid of government schools, or, at least, allow parents some more choice as to the school they send their child. Funny how one form of government oppression might lead to another.

Law & Ordered

2009-09-13T23:35:00.000-04:00

A few nights ago, I caught the end of a Law & Order re-run. The episode presented the story of parents who "let" their child die by turning to the healing powers of prayer and eschewing intervention by doctors. I remember watching this episode when it first came out. I was a teenager, somewhat politically aware, and I knew that this reflected real-life stories (it was "ripped from the headlines", as Law & Order used to say), and I was pretty much horrified by the thought of parents who would let their children die. I knew that adults had the right to refuse treatment, but I agreed with the show's protagonists that medical treatment should be forced upon children against their parent's wishes or religious beliefs (in a self-righteous twist, one of the attorneys is horrified to learn that the child asked for a doctor, but the parents would not give her one... oh those monsters).

Of course in real life, the monsters aren't so clearly defined. In Manitoba, where they have a law that forces children and teenagers to submit to medical treatment, we saw the case of a 15-year old girl refusing a blood transfusion (she's a Jehovah's Witness), and the government forcing it on her. So the province wasn't saving a child from her crazy religious parents (a la Law & Order), they were saving a teenager from her crazy religious self.

The case went to the Supreme Court; they said the law was constitutional, and upheld it 6 - 1. Thank God for sanity... well, not your God, but someone's.

Okay, maybe that's not fair. The Supreme Court doesn't judge the merits of the law; they just measure it against the Charter of Rights, and, thankfully, there's a lot more leeway when it comes to abridging a minor's freedom. Anyway, I can't come out really strongly against this law; I can see the merits; I can also see the potential for abuse, and that is what we should be worried about.

In the episode of Law & Order, the District Attorneys begin judging the merits and depth of the parent's faith. A crisis of faith, apparently, turns liberty into criminal activity. If you're not Job, your beliefs are nothing. Later in the episode, a doctor begins judging the efficacy of prayer. So, I guess, even if you are Job, government "experts" can weigh in on the validity of your religion. Who knew C. Everett Coop was a theologian? (One should never forgo a C. Everett Coop reference.)

I'm not trying to conflate real life with TV, but the notion that we, the mere public, cannot be trusted to make decisions, and that we need some technocratic government official to decide what is best for us, is real life, and it is quite worrying. We have seen, in North America, court decisions that force children into public schools because the judge does not like their religion; we have seen tribunal decisions that force pastors to publicly disavow their faith; we have seen a sheriff sent to the home of a birthing mother (at the direction of a doctor), to arrest her; we have seen courts force that mother into risky interventionist measures; we have seen schools force children to take mind-altering drugs; now, we have seen the Supreme Court of Canada allow the Manitoba legislature to negate the religious beliefs of a teenager and her parents.

...but that was just a TV show; I'm sure everything will be fine for you and me.

One More Reason to be a Libertarian Rather than a Conservative

2009-09-12T08:09:00.001-04:00

Lack of deference to the cops.

Granted that's not totally fair, but I'd be hard-pressed to name someone on "The Right" who polices the police to greater degree than Radley Balko (even though a lot of the commenters on this post seem to have an unhealthy dislike for cops). Further, it has been my experience that conservatives seem more willing to be apologists for the police. Sure, there are exceptions, and I'd generally be more willing to line up with conservatives than with readers of DailyKos on the topic, but still, libertarians seem to carry the least political baggage.

[UPDATE: I didn't actually realize I was making a pun with the blog title. I duly apologize. Though, in my defense, my father is the king of bad puns, and I assume punning is hereditary.]

Don't You Just Hate It When...

2009-09-11T16:23:00.000-04:00

...you write about something, then realize someone else did a much better job. Here I am writing about libertarian paternalism, and here's Will Wilkinson writing about libertarian paternalism:

Individual choices made again and again create habits. Coordinated patterns of individual actions create norms. Choice architecture not only nudges us to do what we already want to do, but over time shapes what we want and shapes the social context and meaning of choice. By modifying the local frame of choice, the architect systematically affects the global frame of future choices. Suppose manipulating the context of micro-level individual choices eventually shifts political preferences. Do we think it is okay for the state to aim at producing a population with different political preferences, so that they will vote for the things that we, the choice architects, know will make them better off? (My critique of Social Security is that this is terribly illiberal and is exactly what happened.) Obviously this is completely pernicious and unacceptable. Which may be one reason why a chaotic ad hoc gallimaufry of completing choice frames, which add up to nothing in particular and tilts at no one set of values may be precisely what leaves us best off in the end.

Damn.

The First Libertarian Question

2009-09-10T09:07:00.000-04:00

Well, it's not the first one that was asked in response to my My Libertarian post, but it's the first one I'll address. Richard Albert writes:

One question, though: Do you really think that subsidiarity serves libertarian interests?

I guess, again, it depends on what sort of libertarian one is (again, to borrow from the original post by Jim Manzi that started this whole thing). I think Mr. Manzi makes a great argument for subsidiarity serving the needs of libertarianism-as-means. When reading social science analyses of America (and, granted, I haven't read a whole lot), the results (whether the topic is healthcare, education, real estate development, crime, the rate of caesarean sections, etc) tend to vary greatly state-to-state. And they often vary independent of geography (neighbouring states can have vastly different results). Assuming people in each state are willing to observe and learn from the experiences of other states, this is that whole "laboratories of democracy" thing at work. Of course, there's no guarantee that states will learn from each other, but we can certainly hope.

Of course, I might have the relationship backwards for that one. Maybe the point is that libertarianism is serving the needs of subsidiarity and the utility of the laboratories of democracy. Certainly, subsidiarity requires a certain amount of hands-off governing by the federal or higher level authority. The greater the number of parameters and guidelines imposed on states by the feds, the fewer permutations that we'll see coming from the states. (I know I tend to flip between Canadian and America examples, but the U.S. tends to be a better example of federalism and subsidiarity, so that's why I'm using them here.)

Of course, there's no real need for me to go over this stuff. You can all just read it for yourself. So, the question comes to, does subsidiarity serve the interests of libertarianism-as-jon?

When Richard first posed this question, my first reaction was to think that it likely doesn't. I can certainly envision a world in which greater freedom for the local level government leads to greater restrictions on people by the local government. If the feds say that anything goes, but then your city council attempts to run every part of your life, this isn't really a huge victory for libertarianism. Further, the more levels of government you have, the greater the likelihood that one of them will stomp all over freedom. (I say this as someone who lived in Ottawa when we had the local municipal government, regional council, the national capital commission, the provincial government and the federal government telling us what to do - thankfully, we eliminated the regional government, score one for efficiency!)

Further, the lower down the governmental food chain you get, the less people are interested. At the local level, special interests can drive political agendas to a far greater degree (as, from my experience, most interest groups are looking for the government to do something). With lower turnout, this leads to a greater rate of activists amongst the voting populace. In Ottawa, this can be seen best with the school board. Voter turnout is so very low for school board elections that you pretty much need some sort of faction behind you to get elected. Again, this is not a recipe for a lovely libertarian utopia.

Still, I can't get away from the idea that my version of libertarianism must be coupled with some form of subsidiarity (and, no, I'm not going to get into some tautological argument that true subsidiarity will mean that the vast majority of issues will be decided by institutions smaller than government - churches, neighbourhood watch, families, etc - or just by individuals; I don't think such an argument would be particularly illuminating, regardless of the merits).

An initial, quick and dirty, idea is that the lower the level of government, the greater the ability of the individual to influence the decisions, both in terms of the relative weight of his vote (excuse the inherent sexism of the gender-neutral-pronoun-lacking English language) and the percentage of voters he can be reasonably believed to influence. This doesn't guarantee the enacting of libertarian policies - and, quite possibly, does not even increase the likelihood of them being enacted - but in libertarianism-as-jon this increased choice and self determination is, in and of itself, a libertarian outcome.

Perhaps this is where I stray from libertarianism, but I don't think that the individual is the sole legitimate social actor (though I do believe that only with the individual does freedom and liberty lie). Though I tend to dislike collectivist politics, to say that there are no collectives seems to ignore realty. Acknowledging a social nature of humanity means that we acknowledge human groupings - even those designed to take on decision making roles (see churches and the various committees often enacted therein).

This would seem to be where we enter into the question of freedom as exit. This is a topic about which I am not well versed, and I certainly don't want to get into it - though I will borrow it to continue on my current train of thought. If we take the freedom to exit as a pretty basic manifestation of liberty (which, roughly speaking, seems like a fair proposition), we need to apply its meaning contextually. Even though libertarianism-as-goal (and, yes, I'm deliberately going back to the Manzi term, rather than sticking with my personal one) is very ideological compared to the more empirical, libertarianism-as-means, it cannot be considered in a vacuum (at least not when translated to libertarianism-as-jon). Theoretical freedom of exit means very little when real-world barriers get in your way (in the link above Will Wilkinson notes how useless freedom of exit is when your home is barricaded by anarchists). Though we all have the freedom of movement and association, things tend to get in our way.

There are probably two things that cause the greatest barriers to exit - geography and borders. Leaving a country is quite difficult if you don't live right near a border, and especially if there is no other jurisdiction that wants you within their borders. As someone living in Ottawa, I can travel fairly easily to the United States if I desired to leave Canada, however, I would have greater difficulty establishing a life there. If it was not Canada, but Ontario that I wished to leave, a move to Vancouver would be logistically difficult (read: expensive). A relocation to Manitoba would be less expensive. Of course, even if I could afford the move, I'd still be leaving my family, my friends and all ties to the local community that I've made. In such a scenario, the cost of leaving Ontario might still be too great.

However, living in Ottawa, I could have an easy escape from my province. I need only move across to the river to Quebec. I could get a place that is mere walking distance to my current home, or I could drive for two hours and become a resident of Montreal. Neither of these pose much of a problem geographically, and neither has any border issues.

Unfortunately, there is another problem with this, culture. The cultural differences between Ottawa and Gatineau aren't huge, but they exist. Even if I really wanted to leave Ontario, I would have to weigh the benefits of leaving Ontario with the costs of moving into a new culture.

With each layer of government added, freedom of exit is more affordable; the costs associated with moving diminish, and people have a realistic ability to actually leave a jurisdiction. Do you love Canada, love Ontario but hate Ottawa zoning by-laws? Well, you can just move to Carleton Place. You'll still be able to keep all the ties you had in Ottawa, keep all the positives of your province and country, but you'll be able to escape pernicious minor regulations that you find undesirable.

It seems to me that this is political-level libertarianism-as-goal. If we take libertarianism to mean not only the freedom of individual actors to do as they wish, but also the freedom of individuals to form politicl/governing bodies to make decisions. By breaking this structure down into the smallest possible components, we afford people greater political choice and self-determination than if we had just one overbearing centralized government.

Perhaps I've skirted Richard's question a bit. There's no guarantee that subsidiarity won't lead to many small tyrannies rather than one large one, but for libertarianism-as-jon, this concern is not paramount. As someone who leans towards goal-oriented libertarianism, the choice is what is key. Just as I believe that increased choice is the only way to ensure a virtuous populace, the only way to ensure a virtuous government is to give people as much control over their government as possible. The more political/governance choice we have, the greater the chance that we'll create little hamlets of liberty. There's no guarantee, of course, but it's the only shot we've got. If we have no opportunity to succeed, we will definitely fail. Unfortunately, even with a chance to succeed, we still might not.

So, this post turned out much longer than I'd expected - and it is definitely a bit of a mess - but for anyone who stuck around through the whole thing, I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm perfectly willing to believe that I'm way off track here.

My Non-Libertarianism

2009-09-08T18:48:00.000-04:00

Below, I take up the task of thinking through my own political philosophy, spurned on by an excellent post at The Daily Dish by Jim Manzi. Some questions arose in the comments section, and I plan to address them very soon, but first I thought I should probably point something out. I can't really say that I am a libertarian.

I am certainly libertarian-ish. My politics and viewpoint probably align with libertarians more often that with any other political persuasion, but I'm not sure that the term is a particularly good descriptor. So I guess the question comes up, why did I title a post My Libertarianism?

Short answer: the original Manzi post was about libertarianism, so to use it to examine my leanings, I had to examine myself through a libertarian lens. I probably should have put up a disclaimer, but I didn't.

However, there is more to it. Just as I may not really be a libertarian, it wouldn't be completely accurate to say I'm not a libertarian. My politics fall somewhere between conservatism and libertarianism (granted, that would likely put me in the fusionism camp, but it's a bit of a loaded term, so, again, I'm not willing to totally embrace it), and, recently, seem to fall more on the libertarian side.

Further, in reading a lot of conservative and libertarian analysis, I always find some things that I disagree with (naturally). Recently, when I stumble across some conservative analysis that I just can't buy into, it tends to push me towards libertarianism. When I object to something on The Corner (for example), it tends to drive me to Cato. However, when I object to something on Hit & Run, I feel no urge to start reading Commentary. The more I self-identify with libertarian pieces, the more I tend to self-categorize as a libertarian.

(This effect is probably accentuated by contributing to ThePolitic. It seems like it probably has a slightly more conservative bent than I do... which is part of the fun.)

It is quite possible that my increasing self-identification as a libertarian is a reaction to partisan politics - conservative is too often conflated with Conservative (in Canada) or Republican (in the U.S.). I find this phenomena to be stronger in Canada, thus the more I claim to be a conservative, the more likely I am to be linked with Stephen Harper and all of his policies (or, worse, in the past with John Tory or Ernie Eeves... ugh). Self-identifying as a libertarian insulates me a bit and gives me more independence (granted, there's a Libertarian Party, but I don't think I'll get linked to them too much).

Okay, I'm not saying a whole lot that's interesting right now. This post is more to act as an explanation that a lot of my future posts might be more of an exercise in examining and determining my own political philosophy rather than providing incisive insight into current events.

The other purpose of this post is to thank the two commenters from the last post, Jim and Richard, for participating in this little adventure. Comments, questions and critiques are always welcome.

What To Make of Harper's Senate Appointments

2009-09-07T20:26:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to figure out where to come down on the Prime Minister's latest Senate appointments. There was an immediate backlash, claiming that Harper was turning his back on his previous stance against an appointed senate, and abusing his power for cynical political gain. This argument has some definite appeal.

On the other had, as Prime Minister it is his duty to make such appointments. No province but Alberta has put into place any mechanism for democratically electing senators, and no federal government has altered the make up of our government to force a democratic mechanism for choosing senators. Those things cannot be blamed on Stephen Harper. Further, as bad as the "but they did it first" argument is, Canada is not well served when one party will "abuse their power" and another won't.

Of course, the dumbest part of this whole issue is that we're talking about appointing senators. Is that really democracy?

Anyway, Richard Albert has his own take on the controversy, and it's worth the read. The reader comments are vacuous and partisan, there are only two of them (as of this writing), but I'd suggest ignoring them.

My Libertarianism

2009-09-07T01:29:00.001-04:00

Over at The Daily Dish, Jim Manzi has an interesting post on the two strains of libertarianism that he sees, libertarianism-as-means and libertarianism-as-goal (as he dubs them). The two aren't mutually exclusive, but, when pressed, he suggests that libertarians will tend to fall into one camp or another. He says he's a means guy. I'm definitely a goals guy (if I were to be classified as a libertarian).

I should probably clarify; the way Mr. Manzi describes them, I can't, for my political philosophy, separate the two.

I think the problem that I have shoe-horning myself into Mr. Manzi's paradigm is that I don't think I see the same goal as he does. Libertarianism-as-means is perfectly useful for developing efficient government, and economic and social well-being. Federalism, subsidiarity, "laboratories of democracy" - these will help lead to the best outcomes for most political/social questions. In this sense, I'm squarely on board with Mr. Manzi. Libertarianism-as-means is the better method for determining political outcomes. Freedom for freedom's sake (which is how I believe Mr. Manzi is defining libertarianism-as-goal - and I should mention that he admits these to be somewhat cartoonish descriptions) is no grand wonderland.

However, in the manner that I approach libertarianism (or, at least, my version of libertarianism), freedom for freedom's sake isn't freedom for freedom's sake. Libertarianism as a goal is not libertarianism as an ends. Further, the optimum set of social and economic outcomes is not the ultimate goal either. The ultimate goal of the human experiment should not be measured on some macro level, where the welfare of all people is optimized (however you happen to measure that). The ultimate goal resides at the individual level and it has nothing to do with economic success or social status... in fact, it has nothing to do with freedom.

When I first started this blog, the little tag line underneath the title was a fairly purple sentence about going Galt, metaphorically. A while later, I changed it to the current, Without Choice, There Can Be No Virtue. This idea, which I do not claim to be particularly original, has come back to me again and again. It has come to me when I have thought about my political philosophy, when I have thought about social conventions, when I have thought about my faith. When trying to determine if I fell more in the libertarian camp or more in the conservative camp, it has been this idea that has guided me (and is the reason that I can't fully commit to either). For this is the goal, the chance at virtue. Virtue cannot be legislated; it cannot be lectured; it cannot be imposed. People can be led to virtue, but they must choose to follow (and they must choose not to be led astray).

(I realize that the introduction of my faith might be a complete turn off for many, and could have numerous libertarians shunning me from libertarian society - I read far more libertarians who reference their atheism than reference their faith - but my political philosophy, though not derived from my faith, cannot be completely separated. All that being said, I am perfectly willing to defend my political views on grounds other than faith, and, in fact, feel that it is imperative that I do so.)

For me, libertarianism-as-goal equates to an opportunity at virtue for all. This transcends the ordering of society. Economic outcomes do not, intrinsically, play into this. Mr. Manzi's advocacy for libertarianism-as-means is a fantastic argument for a political/economic/social system that deals with everything up to, but not including, virtue; however, I cannot support an ordering of society that cares not at all for the virtue of its citizens.

An advocate of libertarianism-as-means could easily shoot back that the creation of the virtuous citizenry will result in the creation of a virtuous society, consequently, libertarianism-as-goal (as it applies to me) is still libertarianism-as-means, i.e. by offering the choice, we get the best result. The argument has some merit, but it just doesn't quite jive with me. Any grand society that virtuous people create is merely a benefit. The goal resides at the individual level. It would be a little simplistic to suggest that I am arguing that it is better to suffer in freedom than to prosper in oppression, but it's not that far off. The prosperity of an individual might be greater in the latter, but the prosperity as an individual would exist only in the former. It is this prosperity that I most cherish.

Why Buy the Cow When Mysoginists Can Make You Feel Ashamed for Giving the Milk Away for Free

2009-09-04T01:48:00.003-04:00

The people behind this company are absolute garbage. If you were a nursing mother why would you give money to a company that equates your breasts to udders?

If you feel the need to cover up when your baby eats, whatever (though all those dirty old men staring at you, gladly chomping away, open-mouthed, on whatever swill the mall food court has on special that day won't ever put a blanket over their heads to hide the hideous spectacle that is their masticating), but these sh*theads are calling you all cows. F*ck them; they can rot in bankruptcy.

Of course, speaking of "Cow", here's Sparklehorse:

I am slowly turning CG&A into a blog about '90s music.

Better Than Ezra

2009-09-04T01:20:00.002-04:00

Really, who is when discussing freedom of speech.

Ezra Levant on the recent self-realization by a Human Rights Commission about the wretchedness of Human Rights Commissions:

But seriously, kudos to everyone who has helped to shine a light of scrutiny and accountability on these corrupt, abusive HRCs. I credit the blogosphere, and talk radio, and some of the more open-minded reporters in the mainstream media, for turning “HRC” into a four-letter word. And, of course, there’s Marc Lemire himself who has labored in the face of a relentless, tax-funded inquisition for nearly six years, as the state prosecuted him with an illegal law, using abusive tactics. He – and everyone else ever charged under this illegal law – deserves compensation for the abuses they’ve suffered.

(I also make note of it here.)

Just so that the title of this post makes sense, here's...

(Sorry, it's the best version I could find - to make up for it, here is what is, quite possibly, the best Saturday Night Live musical performance of all time.)

Bonus points for the Tom & Roseanne sighting.

I Owe Y'All a Post About Education

2009-09-04T00:44:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to write something about education for a while (I mad some notes on June 19 - on June 22 my house kinda burned down, hence the lack of progress). Anyway, over at ThePolitic I note everything that Lindsay notes over at his blog, Random Dispatches. Here's the money line from Lindsay's post:

Two interesting themes arise here: a) the most interesting stuff is happening at charter schools (the “startups” of the education world?) and b) if you want better schools you’re on a collision course with the union. I’m hoping some of these memes go national soon.

As someone who has worked in the education industry, I echo Lindsay's sentiments, though I would add that in order to change education you will be colliding with unions and beaurocrats. It's shocking how little concern there is for the actual students.

A Lament

2009-09-03T19:12:00.000-04:00

Over at ThePolitic, Matthew Campbell has a post up about the Bryant case, One Tory Willing to Give Bryant a Chance. In it he notes that we don’t have sufficient information to pass judgement on Michael Bryant regarding his collision and altercation with Darcy Allan Sheppard, which resulted in Mr. Sheppard’s death. I didn’t really want to weigh in on this one just yet (though I did in the comments section… but only tangentially). Regardless of who was at fault, it appears that numerous lives have been tragically altered (not the least of which being those of Mr. Sheppard’s four children).

I do have another little tangential comment to make, this time regarding the title of the blog post. First, let it be known that I am neither a Tory nor a Liberal (nor would I be considered a tory or a liberal). These days, I keep myself a little more separate from political parties. I don’t claim to be non-partisan or non-ideological; I just try not to get too personally invested in the fates of political parties.

The title of Matthew’s post gives me pause. It is inescapable that an incident with a prominent political figure will have some sort of political or partisan implications. People are too emotionally involved in their particular party affiliations for it not to be. First, I should congratulate Matthew on getting past partisan bickering and not judging Mr. Bryant along party lines. Especially in a case such as this, to do otherwise would be a ludicrous affront to human dignity. Still, there it is in the title of the blog post, “Tory”.

I’m going to give Matthew the benefit of the doubt. I am assuming that he put it in the title not because he would be naturally inclined to think that a member of the Liberal Party is, inherently, “the bad guy” in everything he or she does, but because he is acutely aware that many other people (and many people reading a political blog) will assume that people will allow partisanship to colour their judgement of someone like Mr. Bryant.

It’s a pretty sad phenomenon that the violent death of a man has to be explicitly analyzed in a non-partisan manner. We should know that somethings outweigh scoring petty political points.

And we should be able to trust that the rest of us know that as well.

Really? Conrad Black?

2009-09-03T14:47:00.000-04:00

I have no strong feelings about Conrad Black one way or the other. Which, compared to how he is sometimes vilified, says a lot; however, not as much as this…

I was at the Second Cup and I saw a man wearing a black t-shirt (natch) that read, I [heart] Conrad Black. I was a little surprised. I’m thinking I should get one. The novelty aspect is reason enough.

IVF Round Up

2009-09-02T23:00:00.002-04:00

The National Post comes out against funding for IVF. I agree, but I'm not fan of the rambling mess of an Op-Ed. Somehow, we go from the recession to IVF to sperm donation to abortion to feminists to yuppies to media-savvy cheapos. I guess that covers all of the right wing populist's bugaboos, but couldn't they have just talked about personal responsibility?

Also in The National Post, Amir Attaran shares my dislike for the editorial, but we still come to different conclusions.

The Toronto Star seems to be against funding IVF treatment, worrying that the province's finances couldn't handle it. They also suggest that if there are unhealthy aspects of IVF that we hope funding will eliminate, we should probably just make those practices illegal. There's more coherence to that argument than to the panel's suggestion, but I'm not sure if it's great to have the government decide what treatments we can purchase for ourselves.

The Ottawa Citizen supports the idea of expanded coverage for IVF, citing fairness and potential cost savings.

The Montreal Gazette also comes out in favour of funding IVF.

For those who haven't been paying attention, I weigh in here, here, here, here and here.

(God, I need a life.)

Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Life, I Learned From '90s Hip Hop

2009-09-02T22:50:00.001-04:00

I've been doing the bulk of my "long form" blogging over at ThePolitic for the past week. I apologize for just dumping some short little posts over here. I don't mean to neglect CG&A; it's just kind of the way it has worked out.

Anyway, this isn't a particularly in depth post either. Mainly, I just thought I'd let y'all know about what's going on at ThePolitic.

Richard is keeping up his series on major players in Canadian politics with an interview with Rocco Rossi, the Liberal Party's cheif fundraiser. You can read it here.

I make note of a WTO decision that awards damages to Brazil from the U.S. It's nice to see a blow struck for unfettered trade.

However, the biggest activity revolves around a post by Sean Calder. Sean takes up the topic of human rights, "human rights" and Human Rights Commissions. This leads to a bit of back and forth between some readers and some contributors in the comments section.

Taking a cue from that discussion, I post a thought or two about the evolution of human rights. It's kind of long, but here's some of the meat:

When we turn these acts of charity into ‘human rights’ that are owed to various members of society, we are robbing society not only of the acknowledgment of the gift we are giving, but of the duty we have to give it...

Naturally, you should read the whole thing.

Anyway, back to some good old fashioned CG&A content, here's some '90s hip hop:

A friend of mine threw this on a mixed tape he made for me back in school. Here's the money line (atleast as it relates to the discussion at ThePolitic):

...F*ck the First Amendment / My speech was free the day that my soul descended.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group

2009-08-31T19:52:00.000-04:00

There is a new organization in Ottawa called the Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group. As you might guess from the name, they're not big fans of paying taxes. The Ottawa Citizen reports that they want to purchase ads on OC Transpo buses claiming that the city is committing extortion through taxation. As a result, one of their representatives will be debating Alex Cullen on September 15.

If their aim is to get city spending and taxation under control, I'm on board, but what I'd like to know is, who are these people? There are no individuals noted on the web site. All press releases are attributed to the organization.

I have contacted the organization asking who is behind it and if it is affiliated with any other organizations. I'll try to keep my eye out for more news about them.

Lockerbie Bomber Deal?

2009-08-30T23:28:00.002-04:00

I hope this isn't true:

The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.

Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

270 lives for an oil deal. It'll be nice to see Gordon Brown's government voted out.

Obama, China and Trade

2009-08-30T21:54:00.000-04:00

The U.S. International Trade Commission has recommended new protectionist measures be imposed against China. I comment about it over at ThePolitic; check it out here.

Sacrificing a Blog Post to the God of Reasoned Argument

2009-08-29T15:18:00.001-04:00

Over at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, Freddie evicerates a post by Matt Steinglass, which supposedly takes up the debate about a CDC report on circumcision (warning: salty language in both posts, and the excerpt beolow). Freddie's post is an absolute How To on the subject of taking apart a blog post, point by point.

When I first read Steinglass's post, I thought it seemed like ignorable tripe. Some reasonable points, but a bit of a rambling mess. Well, Freddie read closer than I and shows that it was ignorant ignorable tripe. Here's a taste:

6. Assert! Assert as if your life depended on it!
Steinglass: “But the main point is that if the guy who wrote the email were circumcised, he wouldn’t have written the email.”

Oh! Well then! You’re right, nothing to see here. I’m sure “my dick” guy will be pleased to know that. If he asks what evidence you offer for that wild claim, I’ll tell him to put a sock in it.
Steinglass: “There may be some vanishingly small number of guys who are upset about the fact that their parents circumcised them.”

I’m gonna go ahead and guess that Matt Steinglass has not been out in the field taking some sort of foreskin census.

Seriously, read the whole thing; it's great (and bonus points for the use of the term "foreskin census"). I certainly hope Freddie never finds fault with anything I write.

By the way, there seems to be alot of buzz around the circumcision debate. This is a good thing; this is a debate that the West should have had a long time ago. I may comment on it later, but in the meantime here are some links:

David Harsanyi at Reason on "Circumcision Panels".

Hannah Rossin, sitting in at The Daily Dish at The Atlantic, supports the snip.

Again at The Daily Dish, Chris Boedner writes about circumcision and sensitivity.

Freddie, again, with a pretty great post on circumcision and the CDC report.

The Runt of the Literati

2009-08-29T13:02:00.004-04:00

It has been a long time since I have thought of Michael Harris as a serious commentator of social and political events. Consequently, I usually choose to ignore him. However, the other day he wrote an Op-Ed in The Ottawa Sun about the piglets left, in the hot sun, outside Datlon McGuinty's constituency office (which I wrote about here). Here's a sample:

It caused a big stir. The politicians were shocked and appalled. Animal rights activists were squealing like ... well, you know. Luckily, the “abandoned” piglets were sent to a “foster farm.” Everyone likes happy endings, even if in a few months time these adorable porkers will be in packages not pens.

As is so often the case these days, decorum has become an indispensable component of making your point.

Be against the war, but don’t burn the flag; denounce the inaction from various seats of government, but don’t dump a load of manure on the front lawn of the legislature.

I say rev up the John Deeres. It is said that every society is seven missed meals away from chaos. So you would think that our governments would pay more attention to the men and women who provide our food. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not produced at the grocery store.

So we can either denounce the invasion of the piglets or ask a question King George might have asked when they began throwing tea into Boston Harbor: Why are the loyal subjects flipping their wigs?

What the h*ll is he talking about?

It is this line, "[i]t is said that every society is seven missed meals away from chaos", that seems the most convoluted. I understand that Michael Harris long ago gave up reasoned argument in favour of spouting catch phrases ("those who seek vengeance dig two graves!!!!", "lets out fox the fox!!!!"), but this one doesn't even make sense; aside from suggesting that an all pork diet is the epitome of health, there is no reason to believe that the closure of local hog farms will bring the world agriculture market to its knees, thus starving us all. Even if we accept that we need to artificially prop up this industry (despite the fact that it will make us all poorer), how on earth could a McGuinty-directed fatwa agaisnt the term "swine flu" have saved these anemic farms?

If hollow rhetoric will sustain us all, Michael Harris is the boy offering his loaves and fishes.

ThePolitic.com

2009-08-29T02:38:00.002-04:00

Starting today, I will be contributing to ThePolitic.com. Don't worry, it doesn't mean the end of Canned Goods & Ammunition; I should be able to supply sufficient content to both sites (there will probably be more posts here, as I doubt I'll address local or provincial issues over there, nor will I tend to delve into minor details of a debate [see all my posts on IVF], and I highly doubt I'll be posting videos of '90s alterna-super groups or old SNL ads).

My initial commentary is up there now. Please go and visit and be sure to read all the other great writers that I am joining. My post addresses Australian health policy vis-a-vis midwife-assisted homebirths. That's not too obscure, is it?

I promise to try to give links here for any posts I have over there. Well, I can't promise I'll try, but I'll try to try.

Jerk It Out, Resume Building Edition

2009-08-28T11:55:00.000-04:00

Back in 2005, The Caesars came to Ottawa and put on a fantastic show at Zaphod Beeblebrox. I went to the show, got "kinda" intoxicated, and made my way to the front of the crowd. When Jerk It Out (the song from the iPod ad) came on, the roadie (who spent most of the show sitting at the side of the stage swigging vodka from the bottle) knocked the keyboardist's tambourine into the crowd. I picked it up and went to hand it back to the guy, but he waved me off and went back to his bottle. Subsequently, I spent the entirety of the song in the front row, playing the tambourine.

So what's my point? I used to play tambourine for The Caesars, that's what.

Anyway, here's a clip from Conan:

A Nudge and a Wink

2009-08-27T23:34:00.002-04:00

Writing in The Mark, Christy Luo delves into the idea of "libertarian paternalism" as she reviews the book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. The article is a very interesting mess (and I mean that, I can't get on board with the argument, but I enjoyed reading the article). Ms. Luo puts forth plausible arguments in support of this hybrid philosophy while adhering to no consistent definition of paternalism, and dancing around the issue of information assymetries and the role of experts in people's decision making processes.

She quotes Thaler, who says, "By 'paternalism,' [sic] we mean caring about people's outcomes. We want to devise policies that will make people better off - choices that they themselves think are better."

The idea is to present people with sufficient information to be able to make optimum choices. There is no disputing the notion that information is required in order for people to be able to make good decisions. As such, I see no problems with things such as safety regulations or food labeling. The libertarian position tends to argue that people should be free to make choices without coercion or fraud. Restricting information or providing misinformation can be considered fraud.

So, yes, the government has a role to play in our lives, and part of that role is to facilitate the flow of information. However, just as we do not want one party to a contractual agreement to be the gatekeeper of information, we should not want the government in that role, either. By defining paternalism as leading people to optimum choices, it means that the government has already made the decision as to what is the optimum choice in a particular situation, and, thus, has decided what information is relevant to the decision making process. Suddenly, I'm finding myself farther and farther away from libertarianism.

Ms. Luo makes the suggestion that a libertarian paternalistic policy might be to place fresh fruit, rather than candy, at eye level at a school cafeteria. Seems quite reasonable, but let us take that to a realm that captures more adults and fewer minors. It would seem that another libertarian paternalistic policy would be to place fruit, not candy, at eye level of grocery stores. It's a subtle trick to lead us to the healthier decision (putting aside whether or not we might enjoy the candy more - the government has already decided that we wouldn't). What happens in less clear-cut cases? What happens when the policy makers only think they have the proper information to make an informed decision for consumers? If the grocery store customer cannot be expected to be a rational actor, why do we expect more of the legislator (who, no doubt, occasionally shops at a grocery store)?

Further, though we may not, technically, be limiting choice (the candy hasn't been outlawed, it's just on a really low shelf), we are, potentially, providing erroneous information to consumers. If we begin instituting the 'eye level shelf' policy, we are taking responsibility away from people. No longer need they worry about the nutritious value of their food, as they always buy products that are placed at eye level. Certainly, the government would never let something unhealthy appear on such a shelf.

(There is a fantastic episode of King of the Hill, Trans-Fascism, in which the town of Arlen outlaws trans fats. Bill is overjoyed. He can eat now anything he wants, because the government is making sure everything is healthy.)

It seems to me that, rather than truly building a new libertarianism, proponents of libertarian paternalism are attempting to fundamentally alter libertarianism to fit 21st century liberal/progressive policies. It is an interesting thought experiment, and one that was done quite well by Julian Sanchez (a libertarian), who writes:

I can pretty easily construct the shortest path (consisting of the fewest significant belief-change “moves”) from my own worldview to one that would count as genuinely conservative or progressive. It’s probably worth stressing that this would not necessarily just be a very libertarian-sounding progressivism or conservatism, since the shortest path might be to push on a tentatively-held stance fairly high up the ladder of abstraction, with dramatic downstream consequences.

Though I haven't read Nudge, I would not be surprised if this is a fair description of the steps to constructing libertarian paternalism.

Ms. Luo also presents us with a quotation from Tony Blair (apparently the British are more in tune with the philosophy of libertarian paternalism... though perhaps they're just more comfortable with the philosophy of noblesse oblige):

“[C]hoice isn’t an end in itself. It is one important mechanism to ensure that citizens can indeed secure good schools and health services in their communities. Choice puts the levers in the hands of parents and patients so that they as citizens and consumers can be a driving force for improvement in their public services.”

If I may be permitted to conflate choice with liberty, I sincerely disagree with Mr. Blair; liberty is an end in itself. It is better to live a struggling life free, with autonomy and responsibility, than it is to live a happy life subordinated, for such a life is a hollow joy.

Where There's Smoke, There's... Incoherence

2009-08-27T14:58:00.000-04:00

For eight years, Ottawa's bars and restaurants have been smoke-free, pushing smoking patrons to find other venues to light up. The natural inclination was for these people to head out to a patio. According to The Ottawa Sun, now that is being targeted:

A doctors' group wants the city to take its smoking ban a step further and make it illegal to light up on restaurant and bar patios.

Cynthia Callard, the executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, said she's "disappointed" the city hasn't moved to ban smoking on patios because "it's a real health hazard" for those who wait on tables and for patrons.

"It's about time. If it annoys you it means you are smelling it and if you are smelling it, it means chemicals are reaching inside," said Callard, whose organization is preparing to lobby city councillors to take the smoking ban a step further. "We're hoping council will see the good sense of it."

As a good little libertarian, I was quite outraged by the intrusion of the government into private spheres back when the smoking police came on the scene. I even "bought" a membership to a smoking club at a bar (Puzzles) that was fighting the by-law (Puzzles is a dive... if anything, a nice haze of smoke obscures the otherwise unpleasant surroundings). Now, though, I can't get particularly worked up about the issue. I'm at the point of not really caring at all (admittedly, the enjoyment of smoke free bars has probably aided that). However, this new proposal is going too far.

Let's put aside notions of private property, personal choice and personal responsibility for now. Let's tackle the nuisance issue of smoking. Ms. Callard details for us why smoking - even outdoors - is bad for everyone. Beyond the aesthetic issues regarding smoking, there's the whole second hand smoke = cancer thing. However, if our concern is with the carcinogenic externalities of smoking, then the last thing we should be doing is forcing all smokers into the street.

The smoking by-law may have been great for creating smoke free bars, but it had the unfortunate effect of forcing all these smokers onto the sidewalk. A walk through downtown Ottawa on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night will demonstrate that it is near impossible to travel through the core, anywhere near a bar, and not be assaulted by someone's nic habit.

(Further, walk through the core during a weekday, and you get the pleasure of second hand smoke wafting from just about every office building entrance and sidewalk.)

The very fact that some bars are nice enough to open part of their property to smoking patrons should be heralded as a reasonable compromise between eliminating the nuisance of smoking in bars and limiting the nuisance of smoking in public.

During the public debate surrounding the original ban, there was much hand-wringing about everyone's right to go to a bar without having to deal with second hand smoke - as if there was a reasonable expectation to be able to use another's property for your own preferred activities. It appears that not enough thought is given to what is truly a reasonable expectation - to be able to use the sidewalk without being subjected to a cancer gauntlet.

IVF Comment and Reply

2009-08-27T07:50:00.002-04:00

In the comments section of my last post on IVF, Charles Anthony writes:

As far as I am concerned, the only people who should get IVF treatments are the people who pay for it all themselves.

(I'm guessing that this might be the same Charles Anthony who writes so ably at ThePolitic.)

I know that I have a tendency to be little long-winded (long-keyboardes?) in my blog posts, so it is useful to have people make succinct points that are right on target. On principle, I tend to agree with Charles.

I don't think, generally speaking, that the government should be funding IVF treatment, and I agree that people should pay for it themselves. However, in most "advanced" economies, the manner in which we tend to pay for such medical treatments is through insurance. In the case of Ms. Ilha and Mr. Attaran, the Ontario (and Canadian) government is working against them. With OHIP, we have so perverted the health care/insurance market, we have restricted access to this method of payment. If people are forced by law to fund and be covered by a public health insurance plan, it seems reasonable of them to expect that the treatments they need (loosely defined) will then be covered by that plan.

It's true that in Ontario we are allowed to buy supplemental coverage, but, again, the incentives in place discourage people from taking such action. If we view health care as "free" in Ontario (it isn't, but that's how people think of it), the rate of increase in the cost of health insurance when we buy supplemental coverage approaches infinity. That doesn't seem like a reasonable purchase. Further, we are tacitly saying to people, don't worry, the government will take care of all your health care needs. It should be obvious that it can't, but the signals in society lead us to another conclusion.

All that being said, I still can't come out and support this initiative to fund IVF treatments for all women under 42 years of age. What I'm saying in this post is that I don't see this as a simple question, considering the state of health insurance in Ontario. Thus, I'm willing to be persuaded to the opposing view.

However, if we look at the bigger picture, this issue should demonstrate that we are not the bastion of wonderful health care/insurance that we like to claim to be. We fail our citizenry in terms of treatment options and delivery times, and we fail our taxpayers by confiscating more and more of their wealth to bolster an inefficient and, sometimes, undesirable system. Perhaps if we were to move in the direction of Health Savings Accounts and more freedom and individual choice, we could work our system away from such dilemmas. It is possible to maintain sufficient health care for all through a public insurer, and still work in some components of the free market (not to mention freedom in general).

Unfortunately, in Ontario, we seem to have a love affair with our current health care system. Sober analysis never seems welcome.

IVF Report: Fund 'Em All

2009-08-26T12:33:00.003-04:00

According to The Ottawa Citizen, an expert panel has decided that everyone in Ontario should get IVF treatments, well anyone 42 years old or younger (it says "women", so I imagine there is a lower boundary, also - maybe 18?). If you follow the link, you won't find a whole lot of specifics about the report, but maybe I'll comment on it (and the issue on the whole) later, as more information comes available.

One positive that seems to have come out of the report is a re-evaluation of adoption procedures. From a casual observer, it does seem like the adoption process is pretty messed up, so reform would likely be beneficial (though, again, it would depend on the specifics of the reform).

For more reading, here's a lengthy story in the National Post about Ana Ilha and Amir Attaran's case.

Who regulates the regulators?

2009-08-26T07:51:00.001-04:00

So, a report from CTV tells us that Cambrian College in Sudbury ON hasn't really been on the up and up with its Health Information Management program. It turns out, despite the fact that students might spend as much as $17 000 to study at Cambrian, the program wasn't actually recognized by the certification body for the profession.

Students are ticked, rightfully, and the politicians are ticked. The governing Liberals say there's nothing they can do to right the situation for those already scammed. The NDP argues that these people should be compensated. Cambrian College, bastion of integrity, has offered each student two grand.

Putting aside any potential recourse the students have against the college (a lawyer would probably be able to better address that than I), there is the question of whether we, the public, should compensate these people.

First off, my sympathy goes out to these people. They were trying, earnestly no doubt, to lay the foundation for a productive career. They trusted Cambrian College, and they were taken. Generally, my response might be, caveat emptor. Obviously, the students did not know for what they were really enrolling. They did not know what they were actually purchasing. When consumers make mistakes, even monumental and sympathetic ones, we, as a society, tend not to re-imburse them. Generally, this makes sense. Beyond the issue of moral hazard, we generally think that its not fair to take money from some people to pay for other's mistakes. We do not absolve people of responsibility merely because we feel bad for them.

This situation is not quite as simple, though. What expectation do students have of the colleges and universities? These schools are overseen by the government. They, essentially, have the government's stamp of approval. With such an assurance, does caveat emptor still apply?

When we impose vast amounts of regulation on many aspects of life, we work to take the sense of responsibility away from the citizenry. We breed the mentality that if something is legal, it must be safe, because, otherwise, the government would not allow us to have it. It's sometimes difficult to fault people for falling into this trap. If the government treats us as infants, it's not that surprising when we turn into infants. This is the reason that choice, responsibility and liberty are so important.

An argument could be made that these students had a reasonable expectation that their program was worthwhile, and that they have actually been failed more by the government than by the school. This is a very attractive opinion, if only because it allows us to root for the little guy. Still, I'm not totally buying it.

These aren't people getting a basic liberal arts degree. We're talking about Health Information Management. This seems like a fairly specialized, and somewhat involved, field of study and career. It seems that a student who would do their due diligence in selecting a school and program to attend would determine if the school/program was certified and respected in the field. Rolling the dice on a program like this seems irresponsible.

Further, regardless of what forces are working against the sense of personal responsibility, we must not fall into the trap of absolving people of their mistakes. Adults must be assumed to be adults, and the results of their actions must be assumed to be their responsibility (this goes out the window if Cambrian College committed fraud of some sort). Treating people in this manner is better for them; it is better for us; it is better for society.

Cambrian College wronged these people, and regardless of what legal responsibility they have, they should make things right. Unfortunately, if Cambrian College does not step up, it is not the government's duty to take on their responsibilities.

Because the best way to garner support for your cause is to torture animals.

2009-08-25T13:54:00.003-04:00

According to The Ottawa Citizen, seven piglets were abandoned outside Premier Dalton McGuinty's constituency office in Ottawa. There were posters at the scene complaining about McGuinty's government's handling of the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic. The argument is that the use of the term 'swine flu' has beaten the hell out of pork sales, thus making it impossible for farmers to feed their livestock or their children. As a result, they have started to put down pigs (no word yet on whether or not they'll be putting down their children).

The Humane Society is not pleased, nor should any of us be pleased. I understand the need for shock value and attention-grabbing stunts, but I'm not sure abandoning pigs in the hot sun in suburban Ottawa is really the way to go.

If the stunt were not so cruel, the incoherence would be quite funny. In what way can the naming of the swine flu be attributed to Dalton McGuinty? Further, I haven't heard anyone in the media refer to 'swine flu' in months. Everyone seems to have switched over to the much more clinical sounding 'H1N1'.

So, their protest against the name 'swine flu' seems to have achieved three things:

Painting themselves as perpetrators of animal cruelty;
Showing themselves to have not fully thought through the issue; and,
Bringing the term 'swine flu' back into the news.

Bravo.

He may be 'The One', but he sure ain't 'The Prince'.

2009-08-25T12:13:00.003-04:00

Richard Albert has a column in yesterday's Boston Herald. He argues that Obama's inaction and neutrality at the beginning of the debate on health care/insurance reform doomed the endeavour and hurt Obama's standing. Richard believes he should have taken direction from Machiavelli's The Prince.

He writes:

Some lauded Obama’s approach because it would allow him to claim credit for renewing the promise of the American welfare state without risking the kind of personal defeat that had befallen the Clintons and led to the Republican revival in the 1994 midterm elections.

But we now know that the White House should have done as the Clintons had - dive right into the details of the debate, champion a specific health care proposal and marshal his hard-earned good will in the service of a sustainable solution to the national health care crisis. Had Obama led - instead being content to be led - the nation would have been much closer today to resolving the most complex domestic social problem in contemporary American history.
...
Everything in politics comes at a price. Even, and often especially, the inaction of neutrality. In this case, the cost of the president’s neutrality may well amount to more than the cost of the failure of health care reform under the Clinton administration - and that is a terrible price that Americans cannot afford to pay.

I can't argue that there is much wrong with Richard's analysis (though I think we might disagree as to what is the best form a health industry can take). Obama stepped aside and let the Congressional Democrats take the lead in crafting health care legislation, and the result was a complete mess of a bill (well, bills, as no one ever seemed to agree on any particular wording). Obama certainly should bear some responsibility for that.

Further, though, I would say that when he did speak, he was not coherent in his objective and gave no issues or specific policies around which people could rally. If he had taken a leading role at the beginning, but had no different tone or message as he settled upon this summer, I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference.

At Least They Got Trade Right

2009-08-24T20:26:00.003-04:00

The Ottawa Citizen has two articles that tell us that, despite all of their problems, at least the Conservative government still gets trade issues right.

First, we learn that they are working with the U.S. to fight the ridiculous "Buy American" stipulation in the U.S. stimulus bill:

OTTAWA — Trade Minister Stockwell Day hopes to begin negotiations "at the earliest possible date" to secure access by Canadian firms to government contracts in the U.S. by trading a guarantee that U.S. firms will have access to provincial and municipal contracts in Canada.

This is good for everyone. If we are truly in the grips of a world wide depression, it's nice to know that there are people on both sides of the 49th working to facilitate wealth development. It's too bad that there are still some politicians who think economy-tanking protectionism will actually help their citizens.

Also from The Citizen, we learn that Stephen Harper has no intention of forcing himself into the the sale of Nortel. The article reads:

PANAMA CITY, Panama — Prime Minister Stephen Harper steered clear of the debate into Nortel's auction Tuesday, saying his government has no plans to "increase protectionism" in foreign investment while it touts the virtues of open trade on the world stage.
Harper said his government will "respect" the review process under the Investment Canada Act, which requires that foreign takeovers represent a "net benefit" to Canada.

May I ask, why is this news? Why would the government have any role to play in the sale of Nortel? I don't really care if they employed a lot of people; I don't really care if they were once - a really long time ago - a source of pride for Canada as the flagship for Silicon Valley North. They are a failed company that has been hemorrhaging cash and employees for quite some time now. A failed private entity needs to be sold (even if only for parts); that doesn't strike me as a public matter.

Of course, Canada has the Investment Canada Act. The perfect economic tool with which to bolster xenophobic paranoia. The introductory sentence on the Investment Canada Act web site reads:

Non-Canadians who acquire control of an existing Canadian business or who wish to establish a new unrelated Canadian business are subject to this Act, and they must submit either a Notification or an Application for Review.

I know, we, as Canadians, have some sort of complex about other people coming here spurring along the creation of wealth. It's really too bad. If only we learned the elemental economic lesson that wealth is the flow of goods and services, not the desperate clutching of loonies so that those who do not know the secret Canadian handshake can never, ever, ever get their grubby little alien paws on our sparkling coins.

We complain when other countries are more competitive than us in economic policy, drawing away investment and businesses, but then when someone wants to come here and spend some money, we treat them like the first rat entering Europe with the plague.

"Do they represent a 'net-benefit' to Canada?" we are told to ask. We would do well to remember that freedom, whether it be speech, religion... or trade, is a net benefit to Canada.

If the Investment Canada Act were judged by its own metric, it would fail.

One Last IVF Post

2009-08-23T01:28:00.003-04:00

Okay, there is one last aspect to this story, and it might be the worst:

One course of IVF and $6,300 later, Ms. Ilha and her husband have filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging that the provincial policy is discriminatory, and should be changed.

Human Rights Tribunals are a sham, and they certainly have no place setting public policy. We hold elections and choose people to make these decisions. We have courts that were created to adjudicate any disputes, even those between an individual and the government. There is no reason to bring an HRT into this; they are bullies and they are unaccountable.

Though it might not be fair, the very fact that they have chosen this route makes me all the less sympathetic to their cause.

IVF Follow Up

2009-08-23T01:17:00.002-04:00

I should note that even though the "leading fertility expert" made no mention of the moral implications of IVF, Ms. Ilha and Mr. Attaran do, however superficially:

But here’s the sour cherry on top: this discriminatory, hazardous system that needlessly sends couples running to the bank, that sickens mothers, and that kills babies is also costing the taxpayer a fortune. Why? Because whenever there is an adverse medical outcome, OHIP must pay to treat it. Some of the adverse outcomes are increased 1,000 per cent by our current system. Ontario is throwing away millions of dollars this way.
If Caplan wants to stop this lunacy, he need look no further than Quebec, where the government recently announced it will switch to free IVF (within clinical limits, of course). Quebec got the idea from Europe, after studies in Britain, Finland and Holland proved that when governments switched to free IVF and clinical guidelines to reduce the costliest and most dangerous multiple births, more healthy babies were born to more happy families — and the taxpayer saved money.

Although they gloss over the nebulous "clinical guidelines to reduce the costliest and most dangerous multiple births" (selective abortion, anyone?), at least they address some of the other issues. Of course, their complaint that the government is currently making a mistake by being the arbiter of IVF availability doesn't really jive with the idea of the government setting "clinical guidelines". Oh well, couples in desperation shouldn't be counted on for a whole lot of intellectual consistency.

There is one more thing that sticks in my craw: the notion that Quebec is switching to "free IVF". I know what they mean; they mean government funded IVF, but the sloppiness of their language perhaps belies any depth of thought on this issue. No matter what the costs to the patient, IVF will not be free. Someone is going to have to pay for it. I guess they're not complaining about the unfair treatment of socialized health care, they're just annoyed that the rest of us aren't picking up the tab.

It's understable, but it's not persuasive.

Public Funded IVF?

2009-08-22T22:58:00.002-04:00

There's a new issue finding its way into public discussion. Ana Ilha and Amir Attaran feel OHIP (Ontario's public health insurer) should cover their IVF treatments. As the National Post writes, they have spent $6300 on treatment, and think that it isn't fair that others receive this treatment on the public's dime:

At 37 years old, Ms. Ilha suffers from a medical condition that results in a low egg count. Her doctor advised in-vitro fertilization, a treatment that is funded in Ontario for some conditions, but not all - and not for Ms. Ilha.

One course of IVF and $6,300 later, Ms. Ilha and her husband have filed a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging that the provincial policy is discriminatory, and should be changed.

This couple has a point. We have created a monopoly in health insurance - a legally enforced monopoly. There seems to be little justice in forcing these people into a system that refuses to meet their needs (this isn't a failure of the system, per se, it's a decision). I have great sympathy for those trapped by our public health system.

However, we are not talking about a starightforward health care issue. IVF treatment is more complicated than that, no matter what experts say:

"Infertility is a medical condition," says Arthur Leader, a leading fertility expert at the Ottawa Fertility Centre. "You have to understand that, for example, there are more men who suffer from infertility than diabetes. So, you wouldn't say to somebody who has diabetes, which is a medical condition, we'll diagnose it, but you go and pay for it. It's a medical condition for which this is the appropriate treatment."

Put aside how shocking it is that a "leading fertility expert" would think IVF should be paid for by the government, Mr. Leader's statement is ridiculous and insulting. In 2005, about 8.8% of people in Ontario have diabetes. Is it Mr. Leader's assertion that anything that occurs at a rate higher than that constitutes a medical condition for which OHIP should be relied upon to correct? Rate of incidence has very little to do with any moral imperative of the government to intervene (and it could be argued that because infertility is such a grand problem, it cannot be addressed - if the demands were minimal, the cost of covering might be little more than a rounding error in OHIP's budget).

Further, to assume that IVF is little more than a medical concern demonstrates a complete ignorance about the moral implications of the procedure, and the ensuing controversy. Hell, I bet more than 8.8% of people have heard of Octomom or Jon & Kate

Just as we can say that it is wrong to force Ms. Ilha and Mr. Attaran into an insurance system that won't fit their needs, we can also note that it is wrong to force the rest of us to pay into a system that covers what can be considered morally dubious, elective procedures. I think it is fair to make the distinction between medical care and health care. I firmaly believe this case certainly falls into the former; I'm not so sure that it falls into the latter.

The Ottawa Citizen one-ups the National Post. They actually have an Op-Ed written by the couple, which includes:

But the minister believes, despite all medical evidence and the obvious parallels, that treatment is not necessary when ovaries, testes or anything else goes bad — so the second and third (or fourth and fifth) couples are left to pay for exactly the same treatment.
Discrimination? Obviously.

Certainly, it is discrimination, but where does that get us? Is it undue discrimination? Does it violate our principles as a liberal democratic nation? Or does it just make us feel bad for them because they are having so much trouble conceiving?

If we are to get into a discussion of all the treatments that OHIP does not cover, I cannot believe that we would begin with IVF. I would submit that the biggest hole in OHIP (if we are to approach discussions about OHIP with the philosophy that it is the government's duty to cover all health issues) is dental coverage. It seems ridiculous that we would have some sense of "social justice" that leads us to pay for this couple's IVF treatments, but ignores every child's need to visit the dentist. I mean, come on, gum disease has been linked to heart disease; it truly is a health issue.

Moving from dental care, wouldn't we then concern ourselves with drug payments? Is it "fair" that people who need drugs to live have to secure those drugs on their own (either paying out of pocket, or through a private insurance plan)? Is the argument that trying to get pregnant is more important than not dying? Colour me unpersuaded.

I'm not a huge fan of IVF, at least not the way it has often been used in North America. I know, personally, that it can help people who are struck by tragedy (cancer in his mid 20's, in a friend's case), but we have to draw lines. We cannot fund these things indescriminately and maintain any expectation of solvency within the system. Through private insurance, we have addressed (perhaps inadequately) the issues of dental coverage and drug coverage. If we were to allow more freedom in medical care and insurance, perhaps couples would have more options to address fertility issues - options that do not involve paying for costly procedures out of their own pockets.

In the meantime, though I can offer my best wishes to Ms. Ilha and Mr. Attaran, I cannot offer support for the larger goal of unlimited coverage of IVF.

If Only We Had a Way to Stop Illegal Grow-Ops.

2009-08-22T22:38:00.003-04:00

An Alberta court has ruled that the police cannot monitor a citizen's power usage without the blessing of the court (wow, judges think other people should defer to judges; I'm shocked). From the National Post:

CALGARY -- Alberta's top court says police use of a digital recording amp-metre without judicial authorization, to determine if there is a marijuana grow operation in a home, violates the homeowner's privacy rights.

In a split, 2-1 decision released on Friday, the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary police should not have requested Enmax to install the device to create a record of when electrical power was being consumed at Daniel James Gomboc's southwest home in January 2004, before obtaining a warrant.

Generally, I'd be inclined to agree with the court in this sort of situation, though I'd actually welcome a utility accurately measuring how much power I use, rather than sending me estimates that bear no resemblance to my actual usage, but this case is stupid.

We should not be concerned with marijuana grow-ops, because marijuana use, sale and production shouldn't be illegal. In this case, we have wasted police resources; we have tied up the courts; we have thrown money needlessly at lawyers, and we have wasted a whole lot of time.

Why does this make sense?

Backbeat Band - 1994

2009-08-22T21:16:00.003-04:00

For no reason at all, here's the Backbeat Band in what is probably the greatest awards show performance of all time.

So, what was better, Dave Pirner's pants almost falling off or Thurston Moore jumping on Greg Dulli?

Health Care Delayed is Health Care Denied

2009-08-21T23:43:00.000-04:00

Do you know Shona White? She's from Waterdown; she had a brain tumour, and she had to go to the United States for treatment. We now find her in an ad against socialized health care in America.

In The Mark, Liberal MP Bob Rae objects to the use of Ms. White's non-treatment in Canada as part of an argument against health care reform in the U.S. The article, titled "Keep Canada Out of the U.S. Health-Care Debate", reads:

Watching the debate in the U.S. about health care has been a fascinating, if depressing, experience. In particular, the fact that a Canadian woman has played into the hands of the Republican lobby because of her understandable anxiety about her medical condition doesn't make me mad; it just makes me sad.

...
No one should demonize Shona Holmes. The health-care system we have in Canada has challenges – we all know people who are frustrated by delays. But that is hardly unique to Canada.

And the fact that she has weighed in with her story is not something we should fear or denigrate, though we are at a bit of a disadvantage, not knowing "the other side of the story" for privacy reasons.

Let's not forget the other stories we all know: the people who've been diagnosed and treated quickly and effectively without once being asked about their coverage or their income; the success we've had in dramatically reducing wait times for heart surgery and cardiac care.
...
Keep Canada out of the U.S. debate. We've never suggested exporting our system. We have our own debates and our own issues, and because of the moral choices we made 40 years ago they are different from the American paradigm.

We should be proud of what we have, but we need to keep the focus on how to improve it, how to combine access, excellence, and innovation. We shouldn't treat health care as some kind of taboo subject. We should keep what we have and make it better. And hope our friends in the U.S. will find their own answers to the questions that lie at the heart of health care everywhere.

I'm not a huge fan of this ad, either; arguing by anecdote is never terribly enlightening. However, I can't get on board with the rest of Mr. Rae's comments.

The idea that the U.S. should keep Canada out of their health care debate is ludicrous. Of course America should look to our system, just as they should look to European systems, just as we should look to their system, just as the Brits should look to us. Everyone’s health care system is kinda screwed up; it does no one any good to ignore the experiences of others when trying improve the lives of the citizenry.

Too many commentators that I've read get their backs up the moment anyone criticizes their country's health care system. There seems to be some sort of patriotic duty to bury your head in the sand and pretend that your country's health care system doesn't risk people's lives. But, obstinacy in the defense of pride is no virtue.

Mr. Rae writes:

Shona Holmes is a Canadian insured by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. She says she was made to wait months to get a diagnosis for her benign tumour. Once diagnosed she wanted an operation right away, so she went to the States for the procedure. Now she wants OHIP to pay for the cost of her U.S. treatment, which she paid for out of her own pocket. She has a public insurer, and wants a refund on her private treatment, which she decided had to happen right away.

So, Mr. Rae thinks it's inappropriate for Ms. White, after purchasing treatment OHIP declined to cover, to seek re-imbursement. To an extent, this is a reasonable belief. Few insurers would pay out to a customer for something they had already told a customer wasn't covered. I'm a little surprised to hear, though, that Mr. Rae is defending OHIP by claiming it acts like any other insurer. Is that really an argument for socialized medicine?

Still, there's a whole lot of chutzpah here from Mr. Rae. The argument, apparently, is that because the insurer wouldn't cover it, Ms. White is out of luck - but things aren't that simple. In this situation, the insurer is the government, and they have not only made it difficult to access other treatment options, they have made it illegal. Ms. White had absolutely no recourse in this matter. She never had an option to purchase her own health insurance. She isn't even allowed to pay for the treatments herself. It has to go through OHIP, and OHIP refused to let that happen.

I've asked before, why is it that "health care is a right" means you don't have the right to get health care on your own? In our system, one's health care desires do not register as singularly important. They are but one factor in an intensely complex equation.

Notice the last two lines in the previous paragraph I cited:

Now she wants OHIP to pay for the cost of her U.S. treatment, which she paid for out of her own pocket. She has a public insurer, and wants a refund on her private treatment, which she decided had to happen right away.

Let's put aside the paternalistic scolding administered to Ms. White for her refusal to wait until someone else decided it was an appropriate time for treatment. Instead, note the description of the public insurer and the private treatment. It would seem to be the very nature of a public insurer to ignore the needs of the private individual when it suited the desires of the public entity, i.e., the state - at least that is what I am being taught by Ms. White's story and Mr. Rae's argument.

But let's not ignore the juxtaposition with private treatment. Apparently, by going to the U.S. and making her own arrangements, the treatment qualified as private. Had she waited in line, like a good little Canuck, her OHIP covered treatment would have qualified (at least according to Mr. Rae's analysis) as public. This is a more wretched thought than the idea of the public insurer.

The idea that our medical care - our health - is the domain of the government is ludicrous. It is an abhorrent violation of personal sovereignty and human dignity. It is not a mentality that aligns with classical liberal principles. We can decide that health care needs to be paid for by the state; we can decide that health care needs to administered by the state, but to appropriate ownership of the very treatments that we receive - potentially invasive measures - is one step too far if Canada is to retain any claims of liberalism and liberty.

According to Mr. Rae's analysis, anything that is covered by OHIP - every visit to your doctor, every surgery you require, the birth of every child you have - belongs to the state.

Tell me that's not horrifying.

More on the Muhammad Cartoons and Yale University

2009-08-21T22:24:00.007-04:00

Writing at The News Blog of the Yale Alumni Magazine, Carole Bass attacks critics of Yale University Press's decision not to publish any images of Muhammad in a book about the impact of Muhammad:

Most of the conservative outcry over the Yale University Press’s Muhammad cartoon censorship has accused the university of cowardice (though we haven’t seen many of those accusers bravely replicating the offending illustrations).

Well, I displayed an image of Muhammad here, and posted a link to the cartoons a couple of times, but it's true; I've never posted any of the cartoons. So here's one (chosen not quite at random, but because it was the first one on the page I found):

Now, maybe Ms. Bass will still call me a coward. I'm pretty sure only a handful of people have ever read this blog.

Perhaps there's no concern that any reprisals will occur in Canada. Maybe we're too civilized for that.

Or, maybe not...

(H/T: Michael Rubin.)

Banning Books in Brampton

2009-08-21T10:11:00.003-04:00

Apparently, in one Brampton high school, a complaint about a seminal American novel can rob an entire grade of the enjoyment of reading it.

Werner Patels reports:

A high school in Brampton, Ontario, recently made headlines when its principal decided to ban Harper Lee’s novel To Kill A Mockingbird, following a complaint from one parent about the use of racial epithets in the book.

...

Attacking a literary work, as this parent has done, is symbolic of the ignorance that has come to affect such large numbers of people in our midst. It is this ignorance that will prove either our biggest challenge or our downfall.

It pretty much goes without saying that this is a wretched decision, and Principal Kevin McGuire (who made the decision at the end of last year - no doubt hoping the issue would slip by unnoticed) should be horribly ashamed. It should be generally understood in a Western liberal society that words and thoughts cannot be summarily shunned from public life; that classic works of 20th Century literature will likely address some unpleasant topics; and that those who demand such censorship should be instructed on the meaning of liberty. At the very least, we should not be wilting in the face of such illiberal demands.

Interestingly, I read through Werner's post expecting to see him lay out the moral case for free speech, or the typical practical case for free speech (that unpleasant speech needs to be addressed head on, rather than shoved out of sight). Neither was there. Instead, Werner wrote a thorough post on how this sort of thing makes us, collectively, dumber.

For all the standard ills associated with banishing literature from the public spheres, he laments that those students will not have the opportunity to enrich their minds reading Harper Lee's classic. Sure, they can still read the book on their own time, but if we acknowledge that most people will only do so much reading - and school-assigned readings will dominate this time for students - then we have severely reduced the odds that students will read this book. This is the reason that curriculum choices are so important.

Further, as Werner notes, we lose some of our shared knowledge and experience. A joy of classics (whether it be novels, plays, short stories, movies or what have you) is that it is something we can share. It can be easy to get separated and isolated from the rest of the world these days, but these common cultural (or pop cultural) reference points can help to keep us bound together (the whole, where-were-you-when? type question). If a new generation does not read To Kill a Mockingbird, how will they understand who Boo Radley is?

Thankfully, we can be comforted by the fact that these censors will, no doubt, be haunted eternally by the ghost of Gregory Peck.

Well, it's only kinda rape.

2009-08-18T16:28:00.002-04:00

Apparently forcing yourself on a women, kissing her and "not the most serious" penetration only deserves two months house arrest.

From The Ottawa Citizen (emphasis mine):

OTTAWA — An Ottawa taxi driver found guilty of sexually assaulting a female passenger has been sentenced to two months of house arrest.

Hassan Jabar Majli, 36, stood with his arms behind his back as Ontario Superior Court Justice Denis Power sentenced him for the June 23, 2007 sexual assault in the lobby of a west-end apartment building.
...
Power, who said he had "considerable difficulty" arriving at a conditional sentence, said a term of incarceration in jail was not out of the question, but he took into account that the sexual assault Majli was convicted of was "not the most serious" and that Majli's myriad of health problems would be better treated in the community.
Majli, who has since lost his taxi licence, was found guilty of sexual assault in May after court heard testimony from the victim, a teacher, about how the driver followed her into her apartment building and kissed her on the mouth as she tried to get on an elevator.
The victim, who can't be identified because of a publication ban, testified the driver then put his hand up her skirt and digitally penetrated her as she tried to flee through a stairway door.

It matters not that the man has health problems. It matters not that the woman had been drinking. It matters not that she had been pleasant with him. It matters not that she had attempted to speak Arabic. It matters not that he only used his finger(s). It is still rape, and this man should receive a sentence that better reflects his crime.

Further shame belongs to the prosecutor, who only asked for two months jail time. Yup, just two months - for rape.

As a society, we cannot protect every citizen who winds up in a vulnerable situation. It's unfortunate, but it's a fact. However, we should be able to offer justice when that vulnerability is preyed upon.