Nitroglycol's mad, mad, mad, mad world

Online predator sentenced; victims' families differ on sentence

2011-05-06T07:43:00.005-05:00

You may have heard of the bizarre and tragic case of an American nurse, William Melchert-Dinkel, who has just been sentenced for seeking out depressed people online and getting them to kill themselves. At least two of them, Nadia Kajouji of Brampton, Ontario, and Mark Drybrough, from Coventry, England, actually did it. Melchert-Dinkel has just received a somewhat creative sentence - following 260 consecutive days in jail, he'll serve weekends on the anniversaries of Kajouji's and Drybrough's deaths for ten more years. One thing I find interesting, though, is the vastly differing reactions of the victims' families to this sentence. From the CBC article:

Marc Kajouji, Nadia's brother, said the punishment was too light for the crime.

"A guilty verdict isn't justice; punishment is justice," said Kajouji. "A year in a jail with work release doesn't really seem like justice."

Meanwhile, across the pond we see this:

Last night Mr Drybrough’s mum Elaine, of Walsgrave Road, Stoke, said the sentence was a “good result”.

So is an individual difference, or a cultural one? I'm inclined to think the latter, especially since this isn't the only case of dramatically different responses to similar crimes between Canada and the UK. Remember how Tim McLean's mum was all but calling for the public execution of Vince Li? Well, when another person with severe mental illness, Sabina Eriksson, killed a man in the UK in 2008, the victim's brother had this to say:

"We don't hold her responsible, the same as we wouldn't blame a rabid dog for biting someone. She is ill and to a large degree, not responsible for her actions. But her mental disorder should have been recognized much earlier."

So why are we so much more vengeful here? I think it's probably because we watch more American TV, with its emphasis on hang 'em high "justice". For what it's worth, I find the British response more rational and civilized.

Science experiment leads to arrests

2011-05-04T20:36:00.002-05:00

It seems amateur science can be risky in more ways than one:

Two teenagers in Kelowna learned a lesson in not playing with matches Tuesday night after they set off a hydrogen gas explosion that brought out the bomb squad.

Police received a call shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday from a neighbour. The caller reported that an explosion rattled windows and caused one person at the home to jump off a couch, according to Cnst. Steve Holmes.

“Neighbors went outside to find a woman and two males, in their late teens, picking up debris off their driveway,” said Holmes. “A noticeable ring of “charring” scarred the driveway and one of the young men stated that it was only hydrogen, which is a flammable gas.”

Holmes said a witness advised that a smaller explosion had been heard coming from the same residence earlier in the day.

“Police arrived, along with the fire department and maintained a distance from the residence as it was unknown what kind of explosive devices they were dealing with,” said Holmes. “Police called the residence and asked the 49-year-old female inside to come outside.”

The woman went outside her home and was detained by police as they spoke with her, said Holmes.

“Police learned that her two teenage sons were experimenting with hydrogen gas and that it was a science experiment that had gotten out of hand,” said Holmes.

The teenagers were out looking for their dog, which had run away when the hydrogen was detonated. After a search, they were found and arrested for possession of explosives.

Source, my emphasis. Now I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I had a chemistry set, and the instructions explained how to make - and detonate - small amounts of hydrogen. To be fair, they may have been a bit cavalier in the amount they made, and they shouldn't have done it with the dog off the leash, but the charge levied is one that in the old days was usually only applied to serious stuff, usually if you're actually trying to do damage. Of course, if they'd hurt someone, a charge of criminal negligence might be justified, but if possession of any material that could cause an explosion is a crime, then you'd best get rid of any blowtorches, gas barbecues, aerosol cans, and the like that you might have.

The day after

2011-05-03T18:26:00.007-05:00

Well, as you're no doubt aware, the election didn't go the way I expected. For that matter, it didn't go the way most other people expected, including some of the winning candidates. And indeed there are some good aspects to what happened; while part of me would have loved to see the NDP jump from fourth place to government in one fell swoop, it's probably better that these rookie MPs get the chance to learn the ropes in opposition before they take office (I suspect that was a contributing factor to the troubles of the Rae government in Ontario back in the day). I'm not unhappy to see Elizabeth May in the House either, for that matter.

But while this was a hugely successful election for the NDP, it is definitely a Pyrrhic victory, thanks to the Conservative majority. What's odd, though, is the way things played out in the final day or so of the campaign. Nearly all the polls put the Cons in the mid to high thirties, while the NDP's share of the vote is shown as pretty close to what they actually got. So what gave the Cons the boost into majority territory?

It sounds crazy, but one possibility that comes to my mind is the death of Osama bin Laden. Some people seem to see the killing as a vindication of the Afghan war, and if enough people who were right-leaning but had a bad feeling about our involvement in said war had their (obviously limited) minds changed by this, it could have made the difference. Pretty pathetic, but then a lot of Canadian voters are pretty pathetic.

What can we expect now? The Cons claim that they're not going to introduce radical changes... and maybe the government itself won't, but I bet that there will be a lot of private members' bills reopening the abortion and marriage debates. Most of them won't make it far enough to be debated, but those that do get debated have an excellent chance of passing.

And as bad as that would be, there are worse things that could happen. At least if abortion or same-sex marriage is banned it will be easy enough for a future government to reverse the decision. Indeed, if they use the notwithstanding clause to avoid constitutional challenges, such a law would automatically be invalidated unless renewed. On the other hand, if they abolish the Canadian Wheat Board, for instance, NAFTA will likely preclude reversing such a move; it will be gone forever. And that is a bad thing.

The moment of truth approaches

2011-05-01T11:39:00.004-05:00

Firstly, my apologies for not updating this blog more frequently. Among other things, I've been working on an actual election campaign (hey, you didn't think I was nonpartisan, did you?). But in any case, as you're no doubt aware, there seems to have been a dramatic shift in the last few weeks. The chances of a Conservative majority seem to be greatly reduced, although it's not impossible that the NDP surge could pull enough votes away from the Liberals to push the Conservatives over the top.

Last week, based mostly on poking around on the Election Prediction website, I came up with the following guess as to seat distribution: Conservatives 138, Liberals 67, NDP 59, Bloc 41, Green 1, Independent 2 (André Arthur and Hec Clouthier). However, the NDP could very well do even better, and indeed some seat projections from the latest polls put the NDP firmly in second place in the seat count. In fact, many of the projections have the combined NDP and Liberal seats adding up to a majority. But what then?

My suspicion is that the Liberals would be reluctant to defeat the government and allow the NDP to take power, because this would greatly diminish the Liberals' opportunity to rebuild their party. After all, once the NDP is out of third place they, and not the Liberals, will be seen as the main alternative to the Conservatives. On the other hand, for the Liberals to prop up the Cons once again, they'd have to swallow a lot of pride, and so it's not impossible that Layton will end up in the PMO. We'll know soon enough...

Also interesting is the race in Saanich-Gulf Islands. I have a sneaking suspicion that Elizabeth May will manage to win that seat, which could be the beginning of a slow ascent for her party. On the other hand, if she doesn't win that seat it may be quite some time before the Greens are a significant force.

Elizabeth May shut out of TV debates

2011-03-29T21:27:00.004-05:00

I wondered if this was going to happen:

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is once again getting shut out of the televised debates, but she is already rallying her troops for a fight and finding some unlikely allies.

From the Star. Interesting to see who some of these allies are:

New Democrat Leader Jack Layton — who had threatened to boycott if she took part last time — expressed dissatisfaction with the way the decision was made.

“If certain leaders are not invited to participate, I think it is reasonable for them to know why,” Layton said in a statement.

“We’re fine with her in the debate,” he added.
***
Bryon Wilfert, the Liberal incumbent for Richmond Hill and a close confidant of Dion, denounced the decision, although made it clear he was not speaking on behalf of his party.
“I think the networks are wrong,” said Wilfert, who considers May a friend and thought she contributed much to the debate last time.

It's very much to Layton's credit (and Wilfert's, but then he wouldn't have to face her in the debate) to take this stance, especially since he initially opposed her inclusion in the previous debate. The fact is, she did contribute a lot to the debate last time. Now technically, she was on much stronger ground in 2008, thanks to Blair Wilson's having crossed the floor to join her party. Technically, of course, the networks would be consistent with their previous policy if they didn't let her in, since the Greens no longer have a sitting MP, but surely having participated previously should count for something, no? It's worth remembering that the PCs came within two seats of being eliminated in 1993, and it's a safe bet that if Jean Charest and Elsie Wayne hadn't managed to cling to their seats, the PCs would still have been allowed into the debate in 1997.

Then again...

2011-03-26T08:43:00.003-05:00

As noted yesterday, Ipsos' latest poll puts the Cons in majority territory. It's worth remembering, as a commenter to yesterday's post reminded me, that polls of this sort are hardly the last word, so maybe it's not time to panic yet. Indeed, EKOS also just came out with a poll of their own suggesting that the Cons, while ahead, are not anywhere near a majority. This poll is a lot more consistent with most (not all) recent ones.

Of course, if after the election the new parliament is pretty much the same as the old one, we'll be right back where we started... unless the opposition tries to form a coalition again. Unfortunately, this seems unlikely, since the Cons have been absurdly successful in painting coalitions as something evil and unbecoming of Canadians. Why this idea resonates with the public I have no idea, but it does. So we'd have yet another Conservative minority government... and quite likely a one-way trip back to Massachusetts for Iggy.

And they're off...

2011-03-25T17:21:00.008-05:00

As you will doubtless be aware by now, the Harper government has been defeated in a confidence vote, which means an election is coming. The situation is unfortunate, because at best we're looking at another Conservative minority government... but the latest poll looks much, much worse:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives begin an election campaign this weekend far ahead of their political rivals in public favour and would be poised to win a "comfortable" majority if Canadians cast their votes now, a new poll has found.
The national survey, conducted exclusively for Postmedia News and Global National, reveals voter support is declining for the opposition Liberals who have put forward a non-confidence motion that will lead to the defeat of the Conservative government in the House of Commons this afternoon.

The March 22-23 poll by Ipsos Reid found public support remains solid for the Tories despite recent opposition attempts to draw attention to such controversies as the government's treatment of Parliament and revelations that an ex-senior aide to Harper lobbied a department to get funds for his fiancée, a former escort.

The Conservatives are now supported by 43 per cent of decided voters -- up by three points from two weeks ago.

Just as important, the Tories now have a widening 19-point lead over the Liberals led by Michael Ignatieff.

The Grits, who have been trying to incite public fury over the government's ethical record and improve the public's negative impression of Ignatieff, now have the support of just 24 per cent of voters, down by three points.

Jack Layton's NDP, which put the country on the path to a spring election by announcing earlier this week it would not support the Conservative budget, are backed by 16 per cent of voters -- no change from the previous poll.

What's confusing, though, is the fact that another poll found that voters are increasingly skeptical of the government:

A poll conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV by Nanos Research shows that 41 per cent of Canadians trust the Conservative government less than they did a year ago. Only 6 per cent trust it more. Forty-eight per cent feel about the same, and 5 per cent just don’t know.

What is going on here? One interpretation is simple - one (or both) of those polls is just plain wrong. But there's another possibility, and a disturbing one at that. It could well be that corruption and dishonesty in government tends to favour the political right, even when it's a right wing party that's being corrupt and dishonest. After all, people who have made up their minds that all politicians are crooks are going to be more inclined to give their (grudging) support to a party they believe will reduce the role of government... which is precisely how right wing parties like to market themselves. Notably, prominent Liberal strategist Warren Kinsella thinks the Ipsos poll is accurate, and that a Conservative sweep is coming.

I'm not 100% certain of this, of course, and I really hope it's not the case. If it is, our democracy is even more broken than previously thought.

Of course, one of the biggest problems in our democracy is first-past-the-post. Given this, some people are bound to advocate tactical voting (or, as it's become trendy to call it in this country, "strategic voting"). Now I'm a "never say never" kind of person, and I recognize that in extremis this might be necessary. However, most of the time it doesn't do any good, and you're simply wasting a vote on a party you don't even really like in the mistaken view that you're helping stop the Cons. That said, tactical voting might help if, and only if:

1) The national situation is such that the Cons are either on the verge of a majority (as they may well be now) or on the verge of being pushed into second place. The key, though, is on the verge. If things are such that a majority is inevitable - or impossible for that matter - there's no benefit for tactical voting (though there may be a benefit to the party that advocates tactical voting, which usually means the Liberals). Now this is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for this approach to help. The other is:

2) The situation in your own riding must be such that the Conservative candidate could credibly either win or lose. This rules out a riding like Winnipeg Centre or Elmwood-Transcona (where the Cons are a non-entity) as well as ridings like Provencher or Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette (where most of the population thinks they'll go to Hell if they vote for anyone else).

It's worth noting too that even in such a case, the best tactical vote might actually be for the NDP (especially in parts of BC or Saskatchewan) or even the Greens (in Saanich-Gulf Islands, for instance) but I doubt too many Liberals are going to point out subtleties like this. Myself, I'm kind of hoping a Liberal canvasser comes to my door and tries to sell me on the subject of tactical voting so that I can rub his or her face in this fact.

Republicans want to bring back child labour

2011-03-12T10:01:00.001-06:00

Seriously:

SB 222 – This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.

Source (h/t PZ Myers at Pharyngula).

Manitoba judge says sexual assault victim was asking for it

2011-02-24T19:24:00.004-06:00

I wish I could say I was surprised:

A convicted rapist will not go to jail because a Manitoba judge says the victim sent signals that "sex was in the air" through her suggestive attire and flirtatious conduct on the night of the attack.

Kenneth Rhodes was given a two-year conditional sentence last week which allows him to remain free in the community, in a decision likely to trigger strong debate. The Crown wanted at least three years behind bars.

From the Free Press. Yeah, it's a little shocking that we still see travesties like this, but judges tend to stay in their positions for a long time, and it takes a while for the dinosaurs to die off. The only thing is, the judge in this case was appointed in 2009 - by the "tough on crime" Harper government. Maybe that's why the Sun, which is normally all over these stories, is strangely silent on the matter so far...

Edited to add: The Sun is finally reporting the story, a day late and several paragraphs short. I suppose they couldn't ignore this case forever...

More signs of knee jerk anti-tax sentiment in Canada

2011-02-24T17:20:00.003-06:00

Councillors in Hamilton attempted to introduce a tax on large paved areas. There's a good reason to penalize such expanses, as they send more stormwater into the sewer system, which costs the city money. Of course, it's easy to whip up public sentiment against something like this, especially if you give it a scary sounding name like "rain tax" (perhaps they borrowed the notion from the Manitoba PCs, who have gotten ridiculous amounts of traction by applying the term "vote tax" to something that, strictly speaking, is not a tax at all). So what was the actual proposal anyway?

The fee, originally presented to council in 2009, was created to penalize the owners of large swaths of asphalt and concrete – surfaces that send storm water rushing into the city’s overloaded sewer system.

The initial version of the plan would have required households to pay an annual fee of around $72, about the equivalent of a 3 per cent increase on your property tax bill.

However, Merulla and Whitehead were proposing a new version of the plan that would only target the commercial and industrial sectors and protect residential taxpayers from the new fee.

Sounds pretty reasonable, and no doubt if you presented it this way to the public, most of them would agree with it. Of course, many councillors didn't want to take the chance on this, and the measure was defeated. Too bad, because as a commenter on the story pointed out, taxpayers are on the hook for the rain anyway, thanks to the costs of overloading the sewage system.

An mystery organization?

2011-02-18T14:30:00.005-06:00

In today's Free Press there appears this article about First Nations medicine. It does raise some worthwhile issues, and I noted with interest that its author, Don Sandberg, is described as the president of the Nistanan Centre for Public Policy, described as "Canada's first aboriginal think-tank". Curiously, this organization has essentially no presence on the web; the only thing that came up in a Google search was the aforementioned article. A search for Mr. Sandberg's name, though, brought up a bunch of things he'd written for the better-known Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a notoriously right-wing organization that is given far too much ink in the media. This leads me to think that the Nistanan Centre is an organization that should be viewed with suspicion. Too bad.

ND legislative committee recommends forcing university to keep team name

2011-02-17T21:00:00.004-06:00

For quite some time, the University of North Dakota has called their sports teams "The Fighting Sioux". Understandably, many feel uncomfortable with using a name that at best perpetuates a very one-dimensional view of the indigenous people of this continent. And indeed, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the main university sports organization in the US, has recently ordered names and logos that are "hostile and abusive" (like, say, perpetuating racist stereotypes) to be changed. The university is willing to comply, but legislators are preparing to force them to keep the name at all costs... and even legislators who oppose the bill are reluctant to express approval of the name change:

During the committee discussion, Rep. Phil Mueller, D-Valley City, said he’s never had a problem with the Fighting Sioux nickname, but he would not support the bill.
He said the state Board of Higher Education and UND concluded it’s time to move on.
“I guess I’m of common mind with them about that. This isn’t going to go away,” Mueller said. “I don’t think that the Standing Rock people are going to decide this is all fine and the NCAA is going to be happy.”

From the Fargo Forum. To make it all the more odd, the name isn't even that old - according to Wikipedia they were called the Flickertails until 1930. The university was founded in 1883, and managed almost 50 years without the name...

What constitutes child abuse anyway?

2011-02-17T18:39:00.005-06:00

Evan Emory, of Muskegon, Michigan, has been charged with manufacturing child pornography (h/t Ken at Popehat). Pretty serious stuff, one would think. Except that the "child pornography" in question isn't what most of us would call pornography - it's just a video of him singing a dirty song to elementary school children.

Still, one might think, that's a pretty bad thing to do, no? Except he didn't actually sing the song to the kids. He sang a perfectly innocent song, then edited the audio to make it appear that he sang the dirty lyrics. But the prosecution seems to think this is the same as actually molesting children on video.

As Ken points out, there might be grounds for a civil action here, on the basis of unauthorized use of the kids' images. But the idea that this is criminal (much less felony sexual abuse of children) is absurd, don't you think?

Conservative austerity - Not what the doctor ordered

2011-02-17T18:13:00.003-06:00

Brian at Just Damn Stupid has found this Bloomberg article which shows the folly of cutting budgets when the economy is rocky:

Sorry, fiscal austerity doesn’t work. For evidence, look no further than the U.K.

This can’t be good news for the U.S. political right, whose mantra has been: cut spending, put a lid on deficits, and growth will improve.

All sorts of good things, it is claimed, will spring from a turn to austerity that stops all this stimulus nonsense and prevents the Federal Reserve from doing more quantitative easing. Reductions in spending, according to a theory known as Ricardian equivalence, will do no harm because lower borrowing will automatically lead to higher private spending. Plus, of course, there is the notion of crowding out, meaning that reining in the public sector leaves room for the private industry to step in and all will be well.

This is dangerous hogwash.

There is little historical precedent in the real world, though lots of fantasizing in the made-up world of economic theorists, to suggest that fiscal austerity works. The best example of austerity’s failure is the double-dip that occurred in the late 1930s in the U.S., when spending was reduced too soon in a nascent recovery. In contrast, the U.K. didn’t have a double-dip because it was engaging in classic Keynesian spending as it began re- arming.

And as Brian goes on to point out, Hugh McFadyen's promise to balance the budget on an annual basis would require ridiculous budget cuts... not what Manitoba needs by a long shot.

What's the real story with Saudi Arabia's oil reserves?

2011-02-16T07:55:00.003-06:00

A very good question. It's recently been reported (via Wikileaks, once again) that there are serious concerns about this:

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.

Interesting. On the other hand, others argue that this is a faulty interpretation:

Asked by the American diplomats what he thought of Mr. al-Saif’s statements, he made what appeared an extraordinary statement: that the reserves figure was inflated by 300 billion barrels. Deducting that figure from the 716 billion barrels created the idea that Saudi reserves were 40% less than it officially said.
As it turns out, however, Mr. al-Husseini’s memory of that conversation is rather different.

He says he has no dispute with Aramco’s official reserves data, but disagrees with Mr. al-Saif’s projection for the future and with the diplomats’ characterization of its existing 716 billion barrels as “reserves”.

In fact, he says, that figure refers to “oil in place” which includes both recoverable and non-recoverable oil.

The kingdom’s “proven reserves”, the oil Saudi Aramco believes it can extract, are officially given as 260 billion barrels (Mr. al-Saif said the actual figure was probably more like 51% of the “oil in place” –- around 358 billion barrels).

So it seems this particular report may have been overstated. However, before one gets too complacent, it's worth considering the bigger picture, which is precisely what Gail the Actuary is attempting to do in this post at The Oil Drum. It sure looks like the overall trend for Saudi is downwards...

Drought in China may have far-reaching effects

2011-02-10T08:04:00.002-06:00

The world's most populous country faces significant food supply problems:

HONG KONG — The United Nations’ food agency issued an alert on Tuesday warning that a severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, and resulting in shortages of drinking water for people and livestock.
China has been essentially self-sufficient in grain for decades, for national security reasons. Any move by China to import large quantities of food in response to the drought could drive international prices even higher than the record levels recently reached.
“China’s grain situation is critical to the rest of the world — if they are forced to go out on the market to procure adequate supplies for their population, it could send huge shock waves through the world’s grain markets,” said Robert S. Zeigler, the director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, in the Philippines.

From the New York Times. This is good news, in the short run, for grain farmers in North America who will benefit from the higher prices, but it will be very bad for a lot of the world. Already, many point to food prices as a major contributing factor to the political unrest in the Middle East, and in even poorer parts of the world (such as sub-Saharan Africa) the consequences will be worse still.

Quebec prosecutors on strike

2011-02-08T07:22:00.004-06:00

Quebec's government lawyers, including prosecutors, have walked off the job as of today. Apparently they are paid some 40% less than their counterparts in other provinces; what's particularly interesting, though, is that the government gave them the right to strike in 2003 in order to avoid having to give them binding arbitration instead; presumably arbitration would have forced the government to pay them properly beforehand and the government was gambling that they wouldn't have the nerve to actually walk out. Well, the government has lost its gamble. Amusingly, the radio coverage noted that if the government wanted to fix their mistake now, they'd be out of luck, because along with the prosecutors, the lawyers that would be needed to draft the legislation are themselves out on strike.

Unfortunately, when criminal cases get thrown out due to delay (as they no doubt will) the corporate media and the general public will likely lay the blame at the feet of the union, rather than the government where it clearly belongs. One can see an element of this in the Gazette's article on the issue; it makes no mention of arbitration as the reason they were given the right to strike in the first place.

Man faces deportation - because his wife died

2011-02-03T18:26:00.003-06:00

Appalling:

After 12 years, Kenyan Steve Onyango has been told he's no longer welcome in Canada, after his wife, and sponsor, died three years ago.
Onyango owns a home in Windsor and works as a parking enforcement officer, yet he may have to leave the life he's built if government officials get their way.

When his wife Michelle passed away in 2008, his immigration claim died too. This month, the government sent him a letter informing him that his application for permanent residence had been denied because his sponsor was no longer living.

"Losing my wife was quite a loss to me," said Onyango. "I didn't realize that immigration would actually take that — me losing my wife — an an excuse to refuse or to deny my application for permanent residency. I was thinking that they would be more compassionate than that.

From the CBC. Yeah, I'd have thought they'd be more compassionate than that too, but evidently not. And I can't help but wonder if this would have happened if he had come from the US or western Europe.

Aussies get it, we don't

2011-02-03T17:17:00.004-06:00

In some places, car buyers seem to be getting the message that fuel efficient cars are the way to go:

Australia's large car stalwarts - the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore - have been punished in the January new-car sales results, succumbing to a continued onslaught by smaller, more efficient vehicles.

The Ford Falcon - once Australia's best-selling car - managed just 1157 sales in January, being outsold by more than three-to-one by the Toyota Corolla. The Falcon, which is due to be updated this year with the addition of a four-cylinder engine option, didn't even register among the top 10 selling vehicles for January.

From the Brisbane Times. This makes perfect sense; even setting aside environmental concerns, fuel costs are already high and are only going to get higher in the long run. Which brings us to our own car buyers:

It turns out Manitobans like trucks better than cars, and domestic-made vehicles better than imports -- especially General Motors vehicles, which was the market leader last year with 27.2 per cent of the 44,025 light vehicles sold.

Where they seem to be divided is on size. Large pickup trucks were the most popular type of vehicle, accounting for 25.8 per cent of all sales. But compact cars were second, at 18.9 per cent, followed by compact SUVs at 16.3 per cent.

From the Free Press. So why is it that the Aussies, with their redneck reputation, are making more sensible decisions than we are? To be fair, this counts new vehicle sales only, and it could be that those who are sensible enough not to buy a huge willy-compensating truck are also sensible enough to buy used rather than new.

Cannon refuses to demand Mubarak's resignation

2011-02-03T08:01:00.002-06:00

While the leaders of most countries, including the US, are calling on Hosni Mubarak to step down immediately, Canada's foreign minister, Lawrence Cannon, doesn't seem to want this:

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon was pressed by opposition MPs Wednesday night but repeatedly refused to call for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s immediate resignation.
The Americans have taken a much clearer stand. U.S. President Barack Obama has called for Mr. Mubarak to step down now, dismissing his plan to leave in September as fighting escalates in the streets of Cairo.
Mr. Cannon was speaking during what was at times a very passionate debate in the Commons on the worsening situation in Egypt. Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae, who had negotiated the emergency session, led off the questioning of Mr. Cannon.

From the Globe. This might seem rather peculiar, but perhaps this has something to do with it. The confusing thing, though, is that you'd expect Obama to avoid such calls too... unless he's absolutely convinced that Mubarak is finished, in which case his current message makes sense (cutting Mubarak loose now will improve the chance of maintaining relations with the new regime).

Cab company vows to flout law

2011-02-02T18:52:00.004-06:00

The province is requiring cab drivers to undergo child abuse registry checks. Seems reasonable, given that taxis sometimes, uh, transport children. But the owner of Unicity Taxi is prepared to ignore this seemingly reasonable law:

Unicity said it won't comply with the new rules until it meets with the Taxicab Board to discuss its concerns.

From the Free Press (h/t Fat Arse). I understand why Unicity figure they can get away with this -- they're by far the largest cab company in Winnipeg, and if they're shut down it will be awfully hard to get a cab in this city. What I don't understand is why they're so worried about it, unless... well, use your imagination.

The Egyptian regime's days may be numbered

2011-01-29T08:23:00.004-06:00

The popular uprising in Egypt is showing every sign of success. The fact that it has not been crushed so far is a very positive sign for those who hope to see democracy take hold in America's Arab allies. Gwynne Dyer sums it up pretty well:

By 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon (January 28), the protesters in central Cairo were chanting: “Where is the army? Come and see what the police are doing to us. We want the army.” And that is the main question, really: where is the Egyptian army in all this?
Like armies everywhere, even in dictatorships, the Egyptian army does not like to use violence against its own people. It would much rather leave that sort of thing to the police, who are generally quite willing to do it. But in Alexandria, by mid-afternoon on Friday, the police had stopped fighting the protesters and started talking to them. This is how regimes end.

First of all the police realize that they face a genuine popular movement involving all classes and all walks of life, rather than the extremist agitators that the regime’s propaganda says they are fighting. They realize that it would be wrong—and also very unwise—to go on bashing heads in the service of a regime that is likely to disappear quite soon. Best change sides before it is too late.

Then the army, seeing that the game is up, tells the dictator that it is time to get on the plane and go abroad to live with his money. Egypt’s ruler, Hosni Mubarak, was a general before he became president, and he has always made sure that the military were at the head of the queue for money and privileges, but there is no gratitude in politics. They won’t want to be dragged down with him.

All this could happen quite fast, or it could spread out over the next several weeks, but it is probably going to happen. Even autocratic and repressive regimes must have some sort of popular consent, because you cannot hire enough police to compel everybody to obey. They extort that consent through fear: the ordinary citizens’ fear of losing their jobs, their freedom, even their lives. So when people lose their fear, the regime is toast.

From the Georgia Straight. This may well turn out to be the start of a wave of uprisings across the Arab world, much as the uprisings throughout eastern Europe in 1989 heralded the end of Soviet communism. Interestingly, though, the western powers have been a bit leery about endorsing it. Harper, for instance, is described as "cautiously" supporting the protesters, and this cautious support might well not have happened if he hadn't been caught by surprise by the whole issue. I wouldn't be surprised to see him back away from this stance, especially in light of what the Americans are saying:

Ahead of a day that could prove decisive, NewsHour host Jim Lehrer asked Biden if the time has "come for President Mubarak of Egypt to go?" Biden answered: "No. I think the time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction that – to be more responsive to some... of the needs of the people out there."

Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”

From the Christian Science Monitor. Funny, I thought the criteria for calling someone a dictator had to do with whether they were responsible to the people, not whether they serve the geopolitical interests of the US. One does wonder, though, how said geopolitical interests will be affected by this, especially if other dominoes in the area (such as Saudi Arabia) start to fall.

Corexit still lingers in Gulf

2011-01-27T17:34:00.003-06:00

While the methane seems to have been mostly burned off by bacteria, which is a good thing given its potency as a greenhouse gas, it seems that one of the dispersants used to clean up the spill is still there:

A crucial component of the chemical dispersant applied to oil gushing from BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico last year did not break down as fast as scientists initially expected and probably remains at detectable levels in the deep ocean, scientists said on Wednesday.

Traces of the dispersant compound were found in September more than 150 miles from the well site, researchers with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said in their report.

From the New York Times. While this isn't as bad as some of the more hysterical predictions, it is most definitely not a good thing. I, for one, will be curious to see how many Common Loons, Double-Crested Cormorants, and White Pelicans there are at my parents' cottage this year. All of these birds have always been common there, and all of them migrate through the Gulf of Mexico.

Anti-gang programs to close

2011-01-26T19:02:00.003-06:00

The federal government has cancelled funding for some programs to give kids an alternative to gang life:

Four successful anti-gang programs will shut their doors in March when federal funding runs out, leaving at least 65 kids at the mercy of the streets again.

One program that helps refugees steer clear of gangs like the Mad Cowz is the only one of its kind in Canada. Another program helped teens with gang connections get jobs at grocery stores and gas stations.

Staff from the four mentorship and outreach programs that are destined to close say they've dramatically reduced the number of new criminal offences.

"It's not cost-effective, it's not ethically effective and it doesn't reduce crime to close these programs," said New Directions program manager Liz Wolff.

From the Free Press. Oh well, I guess they need people to fill all those new prisons they want to build...

Medical isotopes without reactors

2011-01-26T07:07:00.002-06:00

Particle accelerators (linear as well as cyclotrons) have been around for a long time, so this shouldn't be too hard to do, one would think:

Research in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia will use cyclotrons and linear accelerators to make the radioactive substance.

Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis says the goal is to have more diversified supply that is less vulnerable to disruption.

From the Star. Certainly a good idea, though it will be more difficult for some isotopes (such as cobalt-60) than others.

Can "enhanced geothermal" solve our energy problems?

2011-01-21T07:46:00.005-06:00

Most Manitobans are familiar with geothermal energy in its mild form, the "heat pumps" used for heating and cooling buildings. What fewer people realize is that if you drill deep enough, it gets hot enough to boil water, which can be used to spin turbines and thus drive generators. The Guardian's Damian Carrington thinks it offers all the benefits of nuclear fission, without the problems:

By mass, 99.9% of the Earth is hotter than 100C. That means that not far below our feet is the power to boil unlimited water and generate clean, renewable energy. Is the UK throwing all it can at this extraordinary opportunity? Of course not, who do you think we are? Germans?

That contrasts strikingly with the more glamorous sister of deep geothermal energy, nuclear power. Both ultimately tap the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements. Geothermal plants send water down holes to bring to the surface the heat from natural radioactive decay deep in the mantle. Nuclear power mines the radionucleides, concentrates them, sends them critical and then wonders what to do with the leftover mess - not very elegant by comparison.

The coalition government has pledged that nuclear power will receive no taxpayer subsidies. But it can receive financial support by other means which are subsidies in all but name.

So what support is there for deep geothermal projects? Nothing. As Tim Smit - founder of the Eden project where one of just two projects in the UK is sited - put it last night at a Renewable Energy Association event in Westminster: "I'd like the same 'lack of support' the government is giving to nuclear."

Geothermal energy has been tapped in the UK since Roman times, via the hot springs at Bath and elsewhere. Shallow geothermal projects - such as ground source heat pumps - are slowly growing. But even Decc's own and very conservative estimate is that deep geothermal - a few kilometres down - could provide 10% of the UK's electricity.

And how! It runs 24 hours a day, so perfect for baseload. The water circulates in a closed-loop, so it's clean and sustainable. It is virtually zero carbon and the plants have a small surface footprint, so it's pretty NIMBY-proof.

Sounds like a great idea. Carrington isn't the first to suggest this either (I heard Gwynne Dyer advocating it on the radio several years back, for instance). Of course, it's not entirely trouble-free; there is some evidence linking deep geothermal systems to earthquakes in some cases, and I also wonder about localized problems from the release of subterranean gases (such as sulphur dioxide) when you drill several kilometres into the ground. Still, it's worth looking very seriously at this as an alternative to coal and natural gas (and eventually fission).

U.S. taking Canada to arbitration over softwood

2011-01-19T20:52:00.003-06:00

It seems the efforts to use the beetle-killed wood before it rots are displeasing to the Americans:

The beetle infestation that has ravaged the dense forests of the B.C. Interior could wind up costing Canada a good deal more – up to a half-billion dollars in penalties to the United States.
The Obama administration opened an aggressive new legal front in the enduring trade fight over lucrative softwood lumber exports, accusing Canada of violating a 2006 deal by allowing British Columbia to sell vast quantities of cut-rate, Crown-owned timber to lumber companies.

From the Globe. And what is the nature of this "subsidy"?

The heart of the U.S. case is that B.C. lumber producers have blatantly exploited the beetle infestation and a flawed timber pricing system to get their hands on vast quantities of good, cheap logs during the worst industry slump since the Great Depression. Lumber that typically would be sold to mills for as much as $18 per cubic metre was instead dumped for only 25 cents per cubic metre. The result lowered lumber prices across North America and inflicted pain for U.S. mills, according to the U.S. claim.

Right. So presumably we're supposed to let the stuff rot (and incidentally dump vast amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere), so that it will be cost-effective for the Yanks to cut down live trees. Does this make any sense?

Vatican warned bishops not to report child abuse

2011-01-18T18:38:00.004-06:00

There have been whiffs of this before, but it seems the smoking gun has surfaced:

A newly disclosed document reveals that Vatican officials instructed the bishops of Ireland in 1997 that they must not adopt a policy of reporting priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities.

The document appears to contradict Vatican claims that the hierarchy in Rome never determined the actions of local bishops in abuse cases, and that the church did not impede criminal investigations of accused child abusers.

Abuse victims in Ireland and the United States quickly proclaimed the document to be a “smoking gun” that would serve as important evidence in lawsuits against the Vatican.

From the New York Times (h/t PZ Myers). So will the bishops who obeyed this order be charged with obstruction of justice? Somehow I doubt it; don't forget that we're talking about a country that is so beholden to the Church that abortion is still illegal even in cases of rape (though to be fair, they did finally legalize homosexuality, in 1993 to be exact).

Biofuels that don't compete with food crops

2011-01-17T17:07:00.003-06:00

The idea of biofuels from microbial sources has been around for a while, but if this company's claims hold up, it would be a huge breakthrough:

In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium – that feeds solely on carbon dioxide and excretes liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable supplies of liquid fossil fuel almost anywhere on Earth, in essentially unlimited quantity and at an energy-cost equivalent of $30 (U.S.) a barrel of crude oil. It will deliver, the company says, “fossil fuels on demand.”
We’re not talking “biofuels” – not, at any rate, in the usual sense of the word. The Joule technology requires no “feedstock,” no corn, no wood, no garbage, no algae. Aside from hungry, gene-altered micro-organisms, it requires only carbon dioxide and sunshine to manufacture crude. And water: whether fresh, brackish or salt. With these “inputs,” it mimics photosynthesis, the process by which green leaves use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds. Indeed, the company describes its manufacture of fossil fuels as “artificial photosynthesis.”
Joule says it now has “a library” of fossil-fuel organisms at work in its Massachusetts labs, each engineered to produce a different fuel. It has “proven the process,” has produced ethanol (for example) at a rate equivalent to 10,000 U.S. gallons an acre a year. It anticipates that this yield could hit 25,000 gallons an acre a year when scaled for commercial production, equivalent to roughly 800 barrels of crude an acre a year.
By way of comparison, Cornell University’s David Pimentel, an authority on ethanol, says that one acre of corn produces less than half as much energy, equivalent to only 328 barrels. If a few hundred barrels of crude sounds modest, recall that millions of acres of prime U.S. farmland are now used to make corn ethanol.

From the Globe. I have to quibble with the claim that "we're not talking biofuels"; of course these are biofuels -- they're fuels from biological sources, after all. I kind of get what Reynolds means, though; they don't have the drawbacks that most biofuels we see today have. And I'm pretty sure you'd at least need some minerals to nourish the bacteria. Nonetheless, this could be great news.

Of course, as the article admits, the company is extremely secretive about their process. Naturally, this doesn't necessarily mean it's hokum; they may be trying to protect trade secrets as they claim. Time will tell whether this is the real deal, or just another bit of vapourware (by the way, has anyone heard any news of EEStor lately?)

The myth of scarcity is about to become a reality

2011-01-12T18:20:00.003-06:00

Quite often, at least in progressive circles, you hear of "the myth of scarcity". Basically, the point being made is that most famines don't result from not enough food, but from unequal distribution of food. And it's true - there is enough food to go around, for the time being. Unfortunately, as Gwynne Dyer points out, climate change and other factors are likely to complicate matters:

Is this food emergency a result of global warming? Maybe, but all these droughts, heat waves and floods could also just be a run of really bad luck.

What is nearly certain is that the warming will continue, and that in the future there will be many more weather disasters due to climate change. Food production is going to take a big hit.

Global food prices are already spiking whenever there are a few local crop failures, because the supply barely meets demand even now. As the big emerging economies grow, Chinese and Indian and Indonesian citizens eat more meat, which places a great strain on grain supplies.

Moreover, world population is now passing through seven billion, on its way to nine billion by 2050. We will need a lot more food than we used to.

From the Georgia Straight. When this happens, a very ugly word will have to become a big part of foreign aid - triage. It's already happening because many NGOs don't have the money to help everyone who needs it; climate change will ensure that we don't have the food. How will such decisions be made? How should they be made? I sure wouldn't like to be the one making those decisions...

Carbon capture project leaking into their land, couple says

2011-01-11T18:16:00.002-06:00

As many have predicted, it seems that carbon capture isn't the panacea many had hoped:

First there were the strange blooms of algae on water that had pooled in a gravel pit near Jane and Cameron Kerr’s house. Then there were the dead animals – a cat, an African goat, a rabbit, a duck, a half-dozen blackbirds. Then there were the night-time blowouts, which sounded like cannons and left gashes in the side of the pit.
But what started as a series of worrisome problems on a rural Saskatchewan property has now raised serious questions about the safety of carbon sequestration and storage, a technology that has drawn billions in spending from governments and industry, which have promoted it as a salve to Canada’s growth in greenhouse-gas emissions.
Before the blowouts made them nervous enough to leave home, the Kerrs lived on a farm near Weyburn, which is home to a major project that involves taking captured carbon dioxide and injecting it into the ground. It pumps 6,000 tonnes of the substance underground ever day; since 2000, it has sequestered more than 16 million tonnes, all of it 1.4 kilometres below the surface.

From the Globe. This is unfortunate, though not particularly surprising. Happily, Saskatchewan is looking at alternatives, notably buying electricity from Manitoba. The western route for Bipole III doesn't look so bad now, does it?

More water woes

2011-01-10T20:58:00.002-06:00

This time it's a dispute between two American states:

The issue before the court centered on a claim that Wyoming has been consuming more water due to irrigation advances such as center-pivot sprinklers.

Those sprinklers allow farmers to use water more efficiently, by increasing the amount that goes directly to their crops. But they also mean less surplus water comes off of fields - decreasing the "return flow" into rivers that flow downstream to Montana.

From the Bismarck Tribune. So in other words, Montana is mad because Wyoming isn't wasting enough water. Does that make any sense?

Details of accused gunman in Tucson rampage slowly emerge

2011-01-09T21:11:00.003-06:00

Definitely some serious issues here:

Loughner lives with his parents about a five-minute drive from the shootings, in a middle-class neighbourhood lined with desert landscaping and palm trees. Sheriff’s deputies blocked off much of the street Sunday.

Neighbours said Loughner kept to himself and was often seen walking his dog, almost always wearing a hooded sweat shirt and listening to his iPod.

His high school friends said they fell out of touch with Loughner and last spoke to him around March, when one of them was going to set up some bottles in the desert for target practice and Loughner suggested he might come along. It was unusual — Loughner hadn’t expressed an interest in guns before — and his increasingly confrontational behaviour was pushing them apart. He would send nonsensical text messages, but also break off contact for weeks on end.

“We just started getting sketched out about him,” the friend said. It was the first time he’d felt that way.

Around the same time, Loughner’s behaviour also began to worry officials at Pima Community College, where Loughner began attending classes in 2005, the school said in a release.

Between February and September, Loughner “had five contacts with PCC police for classroom and library disruptions,” the statement said. He was suspended in September 2010 after college police discovered a YouTube video in which Loughner claimed the college was illegal according to the U.S. Constitution. He withdrew voluntarily the following month, and was told he could return only if, among other things, a mental health professional agreed he did not present a danger, the school said.

From the Star. Politically, he seems a bit confused as well:

Mistrust of government was Loughner’s defining conviction, the friends said. He believed the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and worried that governments were manoeuvring to create a unified monetary system (“a New World Order currency” one friend said) so that social elites and bureaucrats could control the rest of the world.

On his YouTube page, he listed among his favourite books “Animal Farm” and “Brave New World” — two novels about how authorities control the masses. Other books in the wide-ranging list included “Mein Kampf,” “The Communist Manifesto,” “Peter Pan” and Aesop’s Fables.

The mere fact that The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, and Animal Farm are all among his favourite books suggests that he doesn't fully understand any of those works. On the other hand, his views on monetary policy seem to be in line with a lot of the teabaggers. There are also suggestions that he thinks he's Earl Turner. And there are other odd things; he's an ardent atheist (a decidedly un-teabagger-like trait, incidentally), but evidently also a pro-lifer:

When other students, always seated, read their poems, Coorough said Loughner “would laugh at things that you wouldn’t laugh at.” After one woman read a poem about abortion, “he was turning all shades of red and laughing,” and said, “Wow, she’s just like a terrorist, she killed a baby,” Coorough said.

Given that one of the people he's accused of killing was a nine year old girl, there's more than a little irony in that.

In case anyone doubted that teabaggers could be dangerous...

2011-01-08T15:14:00.004-06:00

I think it's safe to assume that the shooter isn't a Democrat:

An outspoken Democrat congresswoman was gravely wounded after an assassin opened fire with an assault rifle at grocery store in Tuscon, Ariz., on Saturday.

At least six others were injured in a burst of gunfire in what may be the first shooting of a federal politican since former president Ronald Reagan was shot two decades ago in Washington, D.C.
Gabrielle Giffords, 40, an Arizona congresswoman, was shot at close range in the head, according to eyewitnesses. She was greeting constituents at a grocery store. Some of her aides were reportedly among those wounded.

From the Globe. The shooter has apparently been captured alive, so we should know more soon. This is a huge escalation, but it's not really novel; Giffords has been targeted by teabaggers before:

Last March, vandals stoned the front of Ms. Giffords' Tuscon office – one of several Democrat storefronts attacked – when at least 10 members of Congress reported death threats and attacks over the contentious health care reform bill that was the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s first two years as president.

The question is, how much longer will this go on?

Edited to add: There's a bit more information now. It seems that a total of 18 people were wounded in the shooting, several fatally, including a US federal judge as well as a nine year old child. There's some information about the suspect as well:

Giffords's assailant was last night named as a 22-year-old Afghanistan veteran Jared Lee Loughner. He was described by witnesses as a young white man who looked like a "fringe character", clean shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing.

Sounds a lot like Timothy McVeigh actually. PTSD and inflammatory rhetoric can be a bad mix it seems...

Apparently Columbia is now a safe country

2011-01-07T17:59:00.003-06:00

At least that's what the Harper government seems to think, hence the dramatic increase in the number of refugee claims from that country that are being rejected:

Colombia remains on Canada’s list of top 10 source countries for refugees. For the last 10 years, the acceptance rates for Colombian refugee claimants has hovered between 75 and 83%.

In 2010, the rate dropped to 53%, meaning almost half the claimants were denied. Also last year, a free trade agreement between Colombia and Canada came into effect, putting Ottawa under the microscope of advocacy groups including Human Rights Watch.

From the London Free Press, my bold. Gee, do you think this agreement might have something to do with it?

Food prices continue to rise

2011-01-06T07:37:00.003-06:00

It's happening around the world, and there's no sign of an end to it any time soon:

Food prices have soared to record levels around the world, raising fears that poor countries could face a crisis similar to the one that led to rioting and rationing two years ago.
“We are entering a danger territory,” Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist at the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) told reporters Wednesday.

From the Globe. And what are the main reasons for this?

Prices for many agricultural commodities started rising last fall largely because of poor grain crops in Canada, Russia and Ukraine. They have spiked even higher recently because of dry weather in Argentina, a major soybean producer, and flooding in parts of Australia, which has wiped out many wheat crops. The price of wheat has jumped about 17 per cent in the last month while corn is up 11 per cent. Both are now close to two-year highs. Other food staples have been soaring as well, including canola, up 43 per cent last year, and sugar, which hit 30-year highs.

Now it's premature to say that this is clearly because of climate change; it's always a bit dodgy to attribute any particular weather event to climate change (or, for that matter, to claim it as a counterexample). However, I think it's safe to say that this sort of thing will become more common as the climate suffers further disruption.

Naturally, when countries suffer from poor crops, some of them will impose restrictions on the export of said crops. Governments generally want to ensure that their own people are fed first, after all. Well, some don't think this should be allowed:

The environment minister, Caroline Spelman, today risked incurring the wrath of many major food-growing countries by saying it should be illegal to halt food exports even at times of national crisis.
In a clear reference to Russia and the Ukraine, which temporarily halted exports of wheat and other grains in order to protect supplies for their own people during an unprecedented heatwave last year, she said no country should be allowed to interfere with the global food commodity market.

From the Guardian. Of course, Spelman presumably doesn't think that commodity speculators should be restricted from such interference; that's part of business after all. It's only when sovereign nations do so for the benefit of their own people that it becomes unacceptable.

Incidentally, thanks to NAFTA, Canada faces a similar restriction with regards to energy. If we face a shortage in the future (say a reduction in the flows of the Saskatchewan and Churchill rivers as a result of melting glaciers) and need to reduce our energy exports, any reduction in exports must be proportionate to a reduction in domestic consumption -- even if it means brownouts here. This makes no sense with energy, and it makes no sense with food either.

A made-in-Canada launch vehicle?

2011-01-04T17:38:00.003-06:00

It seems the folks at the Canadian Space Agency (and others, but more on this in a moment) are suggesting that we should develop our own indigenous rocket for space launches. It's an interesting idea, and not as far out as one might think (we've been making first-rate sounding rockets for decades, so an orbital launch vehicle is not out of the question). There are a couple of rather interesting tidbits buried in the story, though. Consider this:

Shortt pointed out that sub-orbital launches used to take place at Churchill, and that site could be used for orbital launches.

Well, Churchill could indeed be used for orbital launches, though it's not really well-suited to the more conventional sort of launches, because it's a long way from the equator. Ideally, you want to launch from as close to the equator as possible (think Cape Canaveral, Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, or the EU's facility in French Guiana) so as to take maximum advantage of the Earth's rotation and thus reduce the amount of fuel needed to reach orbital velocity. However, Churchill would be a decent launch site to put satellites in polar orbit... which is precisely the kind of orbit favoured for spy satellites. Of course, there are other uses for polar orbits, but consider this point from the Free Press story:

Canada has the technological capacity to build its own rocket to launch small satellites, officials and documents have revealed, highlighting a top priority for future research at the Defence Department as well as something that's being studied at the Canadian Space Agency.

My bold, of course. And under Harper, this is the only way we're likely to see the development of space launch technology in this country, I fear.

Biofuel for aircraft

2011-01-02T22:01:00.005-06:00

The gas turbine engine (be it turboshaft, turboprop, or jet) has a number of virtues, one of which is the ability to run on pretty much anything that burns. When Chrysler built a series of experimental gas turbine cars in 1963, diesel was the recommended fuel, but drivers experimented with numerous other fuels, including gasoline, kerosene, jet fuel, tequila, and reportedly Chanel No. 5 with success. For this reason, turbine engines are good candidates for biofuel substitution. And it's happening:

The Australian airline Qantas will this month announce a deal to build the world's second commercial-scale plant to produce green biojet fuel made from waste for its fleet of aircraft.
Its proposed partner, the US-based fuel producer Solena, is also in negotiations with easyJet, Ryanair and Aer Lingus about building a plant in Dublin, although this project is less advanced.
Airlines are trying to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels ahead of their entry into the EU's carbon emissions trading scheme in January 2012 and the introduction of other new environmental legislation. Under the scheme, any airline flying in or out of the EU must cut emissions or pay a penalty.
Solena's joint venture with Qantas – which could be announced within the next fortnight – follows a tie-up with British Airways, signed in February last year, to build the world's first commercial-scale biojet fuel plant in London, creating up to 1,200 jobs.
Once operational in 2014, the London plant, costing £200m to build, will convert up to 500,000 tonnes of waste a year into 16m gallons of green jet fuel, which BA said would be enough to power 2% of its aircraft at its main base at Heathrow. The waste will come from food scraps and other household material such as grass and tree cuttings, agricultural and industrial waste. It is thought the Qantas plant, to be built in Australia, will be similar.

From the Guardian. The fact that it's waste that they're using, as opposed to food crops, is a very good thing; however I wonder just how much fuel can be produced that way. I suspect that future generations will fly a lot less than we do. Or, they'll make it out of palm oil, which is actually even worse than petroleum in terms of its climate effect, owing to the amount of rainforest that is typically cleared to produce it.

Volcker fears for the future of America

2010-12-24T14:24:00.004-06:00

Paul Volcker, who chaired the Fed through most of the 1980s, thinks the dollar is in trouble:

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said the U.S. dollar is in danger of losing its role as a global benchmark currency.

“The growing question is whether the exceptional role of the dollar can be maintained,” Volcker told a gathering of New York civic leaders at the University Club of New York last night.

The decline of the U.S. economy, political gridlock at home, U.S. involvement in two wars and “festering” geopolitical issues in the Middle East and Asia have undermined the ability of the U.S. to influence global events, Volcker said.

From Bloomberg (h/t Eric Janszen in this iTulip thread). Not surprisingly, Volcker takes it for granted that this will be a bad thing. But perhaps most interesting is this:

Volcker offered no prescriptive solutions as he spoke in broad terms of the country’s loss of stature.

When a guy who's supposed to be in charge of America's economic recovery admits that he has no clue what to do about it, it certainly does look like that country is in trouble.

Prentice was prepared to act on oilsands: Wikileaks

2010-12-22T19:04:00.003-06:00

This is an interesting revelation:

Former environment minister Jim Prentice privately told U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson more than a year ago that he was prepared to impose new regulations on the oil sands if the industry and province did not improve their environmental performance, newly released Wikileaks documents reveal.
In a cable to Washington, Mr. Jacobson described an introductory meeting – held a month after he assumed his post in October, 2009 – in which Mr. Prentice eagerly sought to establish a personal relationship with the new face of the Obama administration in Ottawa.

From the Globe. One can't help but wonder if this had something to do with his recent resignation; if Harper wasn't prepared to budge on the issue, Prentice would have no choice but to either live with it or resign. Maybe he took the latter option.

The US is even more strapped for cash than we thought

2010-12-21T20:35:00.002-06:00

They're so broke it's starting to cut into their ability to kill people:

The United States executed fewer people this year, in part because there is a shortage of the drug used in lethal injections and because executions are too expensive in tough economic times, a report released Tuesday said.
The Death Penalty Information Center said in its annual report that executions decreased 12 percent this year and new death sentences stayed near the lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

From the London Free Press. The death penalty, paradoxically, is far more costly than imprisoning someone for life. The thing is, even societies that accept the death penalty don't feel comfortable if they get it wrong, so if someone's going to be executed they have to make sure they get it wrong as little as possible. And that means a lot of appeals, making sure that the accused has proper legal representation right up to the point when the last appeal is exhausted. Indeed, in some US states a person who is sentenced to death gets an automatic appeal whether they want it or not. Needless to say, that gets expensive.

What's striking, though, is that the US is one of the few modern democracies that has stubbornly clung to the practice of capital punishment. It's almost a fine old tradition there, and they don't give up their traditions easily. So for them to loosen their hold on it now is a sign that they're really broke.

The spectre of Internet voting turns up in Manitoba

2010-12-20T17:26:00.005-06:00

It seems some municipal officials want to introduce Internet voting:

Plans are already in the works for the next municipal election in 2014 that advance polls in Winnipeg will include the Internet.

"If you want to continue serving the people you serve, you've got to meet their expectations," city clerk Richard Kachur said. "It's also important for the next generation coming up. They use the Internet far more than anyone else. They expect it."

From the Free Press (h/t PolicyFrog). It's a seductive idea, to be sure; even decent folk like Joe Pantalone have advocated it. And it's in use already in some places, but does that mean we should follow their example? I don't see any way of ensuring that the vote isn't rigged by hackers, and even if you could guarantee beyond a reasonable doubt that it couldn't be rigged, it would be a lot harder to convince voters of this. It would undermine the legitimacy of the winner, too. At least now, I can accept that Sam Katz (and Rob Ford, for that matter) won fair and square. I might lament the narrow-mindedness of the voters who put them there, but I can't dispute their legitimacy. But if they had won their positions through Internet voting, a lot of people would be skeptical - perhaps to the point where they wouldn't bother voting next time, since the fix is in. Which is exactly the opposite of what the proponents of Internet voting want. And that's not even counting the fact that some would likely conclude that they ought to try to "un-fix" the next election (i.e. fix it in the other direction).

It's also worth noting that Internet voting could actually worsten the tendency for the poor to be underrepresented at the polls. Laziness spans class boundaries, but if those who can afford a computer and an Internet connection find it easier to vote than those who can't, this will further disenfranchise the poor.

Finally, you have to be suspicious of an idea that is promoted using bogus arguments. And PolicyFrog has found one in the article - U of M political scientist Jared Wesley, who thinks online voting is just grand, tossed out the old chestnut that "more people voted on American Idol than the American president". Sounds shocking, but it isn't true, as Froggy points out:

The 2008 U.S. Election drew over 131 million votes, while the biggest American Idol finale brought in about 100 million.

Furthermore, fans can vote multiple times on Idol. Given that the viewing audience for a finale ranges from 20 million to 30 million, and only a portion of those people actually vote, then it’s clear that waaaaaaaay more people cast a ballot for President than Idol. And don’t even get me started on votes cast by those over the age of 18…

So does anyone still think online voting is necessary or desirable? Fortunately, the city can't implement this without the province's co-operation, and the provincial NDP has shown no interest in this folly to my knowledge.

The Alberta tail wags the federal dog

2010-12-20T08:10:00.003-06:00

It seems that Alberta's opposition is enough to convince the Harper government to shelve the proposed expansion of the CPP:

Provinces are planning to fight for enhancements to the Canada Pension Plan at a key meeting on Monday, setting up a showdown with the Harper government over how Canadians will fund their retirements.
Just days before federal and provincial finance ministers meet in Kananaskis, Ottawa made a surprise move to reject CPP enhancements for now in favour of a new privately run savings vehicle.
The shift in federal priorities on pension reform comes as the Bank of Canada heightens its warnings that Canadians are borrowing too much and saving too little, putting some households at risk when interest rates inevitably climb back from near-record lows.
Ottawa’s critics insist long-term pension problems must be tackled now and premium increases can be phased in, but the Harper government is aligning itself with Alberta in arguing the economy cannot absorb a new hit on the take-home pay of Canadians.

From the Globe. No doubt the feds (and Alberta) like the private-sector nature of the new proposal; from the average citizen's point of view, though, the most significant feature is the fact that it would be a defined contribution plan, unlike the defined benefits provided by the CPP. It's trendy these days to call defined benefit plans "gold-plated pensions"; I suggest that a more appropriate term would be "galvanized", since they protect your pension from corrosion.

Polls show a lot of volatility

2010-12-16T17:28:00.004-06:00

A new poll has come out from Harris-Decima that completely contradicts the Ipsos poll of a few days ago:

The Conservatives and Liberals appear to be ending the year the same way they started it — in a dead heat.
A new poll by The Canadian Press Harris-Decima suggests the Tories have the support of 31 per cent of Canadians, statistically tied with the Liberals at 29 per cent.

The poll puts the NDP at 15% and the Greens at 11%, both noticeably higher than the Ipsos results. The Ipsos poll was conducted between the 7th and 9th; the Harris-Decima one was conducted between the 2nd and the 13th. So it's pretty clear that at least one of them must be wrong. Which one? On the one hand, the Harris-Decima poll has a larger sample size (2,022 respondents vs. 1000 for the Ipsos poll); on the other hand, the Ipsos poll, having been conducted in a shorter time period, might provide a better snapshot (and 1000 is still not an unreasonable size). The moral? Nothing really, except that it's hard to predict how the actual election will play out.

Is Hugh McFadyen driving away the moderates?

2010-12-16T07:21:00.004-06:00

The fact that Brandon West MLA Rick Borotsik has decided not to run in the 2011 election would not be a big deal in itself; politicians retire all the time, and Borotsik has had a long and (by Tory standards) respectable career. However, David Faurschou has also decided not to run, and it may be no coincidence that both Borotsik and Faurschou are among the most moderate Tories in the legislature (for instance, Borotsik, as an MP, was one of the few members of his caucus to support same-sex marriage). Add to this the fact that former Tory MLA Marcel Laurendeau, in announcing his intention to run for the Liberals next year, said that McFadyen has moved the party "too far to the right", and you have to ask - do we really know Hugh McFadyen? One thing is clear - Borotsik, Faurschou, and Laurendeau do...

US Southwest could face catastrophic drought

2010-12-15T19:51:00.003-06:00

Nothing is certain in this business, of course, but some fear this is what's on the way:

U.S. researchers shows that the American southwest could experience a 60-year stretch of heat and drought unseen since the 12th century.
Researchers at the University of Arizona examined studies of temperature changes and droughts in the region over the past 1,200 years and used them to project future climate models in the hope that water resource managers could use the information to plan ahead.
An examination of the past, through human-kept records but also via rings in the cores of trees that can show periods of wetness or drought, showed that dry spells of earlier centuries were much worse than any we have seen in modern times.

From the Montreal Gazette. The thing is, those areas are strapped for water now owing to the huge demands of agriculture, not to mention the golf courses and swimming pools that litter that part of the US. Even now there are fears of Lake Mead drying up, for instance. What would they do? Desalination might help, but it is extremely expensive in terms of money as well as energy, and given that California and Arizona, at least, are badly strapped for cash, how are they to pay for something like that? Will private money be forthcoming? If not, the next few decades could see a massive displacement of people from those areas. If nothing else, one could relish the irony of Arizonans wanting to move somewhere for a better life and being hated as job-stealing outsiders...

Swedish city eliminates use of fossil fuels for heating

2010-12-14T17:29:00.004-06:00

Kristianstad is almost as big as Brantford, and Sweden is not exactly a warm climate. If it's possible there, it should be possible almost anywhere:

When this city vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels, it was a lofty aspiration, like zero deaths from traffic accidents or the elimination of childhood obesity.
But Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters. It is a complete reversal from 20 years ago, when all of their heat came from fossil fuels.
But this area in southern Sweden, best known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or wind turbines for the traditional fuels it has forsaken. Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines.
A hulking 10-year-old plant on the outskirts of Kristianstad uses a biological process to transform the detritus into biogas, a form of methane. That gas is burned to create heat and electricity, or is refined as a fuel for cars.

From the New York Times.

What the Cons might do with a majority

2010-12-14T17:14:00.003-06:00

Dean Del Maestro, parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister James Moore, let this slip in committee last month:

Do you think, and I'm just asking an opinion, this is not a government policy, obviously, but do you think it's time that the Canadian government looks at it and says, maybe it's time we get out of the broadcasting business and get into investing more money into content?

Source. Admittedly, he says it's not government policy, which is to say it hasn't appeared in public policy statements. But what if they had a majority? Just another reason why the Cons must be stopped at all costs. For what it's worth, there's a petition here; it can't hurt to sign it, at least...

Cons close to majority territory - poll

2010-12-13T17:26:00.006-06:00

What the heck is this?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's governing Conservatives have lunged ahead of their political rivals in public favour and would easily be returned to power if an election occurred now, a new poll finds.
The national survey, conducted for Postmedia News and Global TV, reveals that the Tories have broken out of a lengthy stalemate in public opinion and appear to have political momentum on their side.
The new findings by Ipsos Reid raise questions whether Harper will try to precipitate an election next spring, or perhaps even earlier in 2011.
According to the survey conducted this week, the Conservatives are supported by 39 per cent of decided voters, up four points from a month ago. By comparison, Michael Ignatieff's Liberals remain at 29 per cent of the decided vote.

The NDP, led by Jack Layton, would garner 12 per cent of the vote, down four points from last month. The Green party, led by Elizabeth May, would receive nine per cent of the vote, down two points.

Gilles Duceppe's Bloc Québécois has 10 per cent of the vote nationally, but within its own province the party has a commanding lead over the other parties.

From the Free Press. Now I know that Ignatieff is not an appealing leader, but that doesn't explain the fact that the NDP is dramatically down from previous polls too. And it's not like the Cons have been doing themselves proud - they've lost one of their most competent ministers, the war in Afghanistan is a defeat waiting to happen, they've gutted the census, they continue to embarrass us on the international scene with their inaction on climate change, and they're under investigation for cheating in the 2006 election. So what's going on? This might provide a clue:

He says these “key cluster” ridings had been Conservative under Brian Mulroney. In suburban ridings, Mr. Nanos believes Mr. Harper’s team is using “crime as a hot button” and in the rural Liberal and NDP ridings, they are using the long-gun registry as a wedge issue.

From the Globe. The sickening thing is that this strategy seems to be a very sound one. Regardless of the actual truth, the TV-watching public generally seems to think crime is worse than ever, and if the Cons keep screaming "CRIME! CRIME! CRIME!" enough times, the suburban zombies fall into line and vote for them. Quite disheartening really.

B.C. forests now a polluter, thanks to pine beetle

2010-12-12T14:26:00.005-06:00

Not a good situation:

A government report says B.C. forests, often hailed as a giant sponge soaking up harmful air pollution, have become a net producer of carbon dioxide.
The report says the mountain pine beetle, which has killed millions of trees, and massive forest fires in recent years, have transformed the forests from a carbon sink into a polluter.

From the Star. The thing is, the beetles have become much more lethal to forests due to milder winters, so this is an example of a positive feedback with regards to climate change. Dealing with the problem may involve some hard choices, because the best way to mitigate the damage done might well be to harvest all those dead trees before they burn or rot (since either process will release an unacceptable amount of CO₂). The idea of clearcutting huge areas is far from appealing from a biodiversity point of view, since a forest that is clearcut will not return to its natural state for a long time, if ever. However, it is far from normal for such a wide area of forest to die off like this; I suspect it won't return to its natural state regardless. In effect, the forest has already been clearcut; it's just that the trees haven't fallen down yet. Whatever replaces those trees, whether they're removed or not, will be different from what's there now, so maybe they should be harvested and made into furniture, building materials, or biochar.

Just to make things more difficult, this comes at a very awkward time, since with the crash in housing in the US and elsewhere (including here to some extent) the market for timber is way down, and isn't likely to recover in time to use all that material. Perhaps the BC government should be actively harvesting it and making it into biochar, returning much of that material to the soil so as to keep the nutrients in the ecosystem. After all, they just brought in a carbon tax; maybe they should be devoting that money to trying to actually mitigate climate change. But maybe that would make too much sense...

Can hyperlinking be defamatory?

2010-12-08T17:45:00.004-06:00

A case before the Supreme Court of Canada depends on this question:

Canada would be offside with other English-speaking countries if legal restrictions were imposed on the exploding practice of linking to online postings, the Supreme Court of Canada was told Tuesday.
The court reserved judgment after a three-hour hearing in the case of Lake Cowichan writer Jon Newton. Several lawyers representing a variety of interests argued that exposing writers like Newton to lawsuits if they link to a defamatory posting would cast a wide chill.
Several judges seemed receptive to the argument, including Justice Louise Charron, who speculated that Internet users would be afraid to link to other material if the court made them legally responsible for their actions.
The appeal was brought to the Supreme Court by Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes, who alleges that Newton, who runs the website p2pnet.net, defamed him by linking to a reputation-smearing article in a 2006 post about free speech.

From the Vancouver Sun. I'm pretty confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the lower court's decision, which ruled that hyperlinks are analogous to footnotes and are not publications themselves, but we'll have to see how it goes. Any other ruling, however, would be a travesty. For one thing, I'd have to think twice about continuing this blog; what if someone decides that something I've linked to is defamatory? Or what if you link to something that links to something else that's defamatory? If Crookes gets his way, you wouldn't want to risk linking to anything. And of course, without links a blog -- and indeed, the entire Web -- is almost worthless.

US historian has ominous predictions for the future of America

2010-12-07T17:02:00.003-06:00

Alfred McCoy is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He thinks the American empire has passed the point of no return and is now in a death spiral:

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.

Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this 21st-century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.

But have no doubt: When Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.

From the Huffington Post. The reasons are ones that should be familiar by now; he expects that the US dollar will eventually lose its reserve status, the country has badly overextended itself with its foreign military adventures, and its economy is gradually being hollowed out as manufacturing increasingly moves offshore. While his predictions are fairly good as they go, I'm not sure I agree with his assumption that China will simply replace the US as the world's most powerful country. The biggest issue is not mentioned in the article -- namely, climate change -- and this will harm China at least as much as the US.

Gillard hangs Assange out to dry

2010-12-07T02:48:00.003-06:00

Usually, if you get in trouble in a foreign country there is an understanding that your country will do what it can to help you. In Canada we've seen this principle flouted (Maher Arar, or the even worse example of Omar Khadr) but it doesn't particularly shock or surprise me any more coming from Stephen Harper. I'd have expected more of Julia Gillard though:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been accused of possibly prejudicing any future case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by claiming he is "guilty of illegality" for leaking US diplomatic cables.

Mr Assange is expected to meet with British police sometime in the next 24 hours after Swedish authorities issued a fresh warrant for his arrest over alleged sexual offences.

From the ABC. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she's afraid for the stability of her minority government (especially given that she's of an age to remember the infamous dismissal of Gough Whitlam's government). I guess all governments make such calculations sometimes, but it always seems like a letdown coming from a progressive government.

Europe doubts Afghan war winnable: Wikileaks

2010-12-05T13:32:00.004-06:00

It seems that one of those leaked diplomatic communications suggests that European Union officials suspect what many of us have believed for years -- namely, that there's little hope of success in Afghanistan:

Leaked diplomatic memos said that European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told America's ambassador that the EU no longer believes in success in Afghanistan, and that European troops are still there “out of deference to the United States.”
U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, in the memo released by WikiLeaks, quotes Mr. Van Rompuy as saying in December 2009 that the EU will wait until the end of 2010 to see progress.
Mr. Van Rompuy, the former Belgian prime minister who at the time was EU president-designate, reportedly said that “if it doesn't work, that will be it, because it is the last chance.”

From the Globe. Will this hasten the end of the war? I don't know, but possibly. After all, with this going public, a lot of European governments will face hard questions from their citizens about why they're still throwing money and lives at a cause that they know is probably hopeless.

Toronto police chief apologizes to beaten protester

2010-12-03T19:53:00.004-06:00

A couple of days ago police chief Bill Blair savagely criticized the Special Investigations Unit for their ruling on the vicious beating of a chap known, publicly at least, as Adam Nobody. Blair alleged that the video had been tampered with. Now he's backing away from that statement:

Chief Blair said there is no evidence Mr. Nobody was armed at the time of his arrest.
He also said he regretted that his comments in a radio interview created a false impression that the video of Mr. Nobody’s takedown, captured in two segments by bank employee John Bridge, had been doctored in an attempt to mislead.

Source. Well, at least Blair is willing to admit that he was wrong, which is probably more than can be said for a certain previous police chief...

Leaked document suggests health-care privatization for Alberta

2010-12-01T17:42:00.003-06:00

Given that it's Alberta, this isn't a huge surprise:

A leaked internal document from the Alberta government shows the ruling Tories plan to privatize health care after the next provincial election, opposition parties are charging.
The 27-page internal Alberta Health and Wellness presentation suggests the provincial government has a two-part plan to delist health services, legalize new kinds of private insurance and allow doctors to provide public and private health care at the same time.
Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky denied the allegations late Monday, but exiled Conservative MLA Dr. Raj Sherman confirmed its authenticity and slammed the government's plan.
"This is basically privatizing health care," said Sherman, who was Zwozdesky's parliamentary assistant until he was ousted from the Tory caucus last week for criticizing his own government's record on health care. "My understanding is that phase two is coming after the next election, and I absolutely can't support that."

From the Calgary Herald. It would be interesting to see how much awareness the feds have of this; it sounds like Stephen Harper's wet dream.

Suburbanites carry the day in Winnipeg North

2010-11-30T07:55:00.002-06:00

Kevin Lamoureux is good at winning elections, if nothing else:

Kevin Lamoureux has formed a second beachhead for the federal Liberals in Manitoba.

The spunky former Inkster MLA won the Winnipeg North byelection Monday night, seizing a longtime NDP stronghold and giving Michael Ignatieff's Grits a big morale boost in the process.

Lamoureux earned 7,303 votes compared with 6,508 for the NDP's Kevin Chief in a race that literally went back and forth all evening. All 153 polls had reported by about 9:50 p.m., and advance votes and institutional votes were also tallied.

Conservative candidate Julie Javier finished third with 1,645 votes.

From the Free Press. Naturally Chief carried the traditional North End, while Lamoureux dominated the more suburban parts of the riding. I'm not entirely sure what it is about Lamoureux that appeals to such people, but then I don't understand suburbanites generally.

One of the more interesting things to come out of the latest batch from Wikileaks

2010-11-29T13:29:00.003-06:00

It seems the US did some serious arm-twisting to avoid the prosecution of some of their agents in Germany:

The messages also reveal some of the diplomatic pitfalls of America's so-called "war on terror". In 2007, the US fell out with Germany over arrest warrants that were issued for CIA agents accused of being involved in rendition. A senior US diplomat told a German official "our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the US".

From the Independent. I wonder what those "implications" would have been? Perhaps new regulations such that BMW, Mercedes, and VW don't meet new safety and emission standards?

Irish bailout talks continue

2010-11-27T21:47:00.003-06:00

The Irish government is still trying to negotiate terms for a bailout, having become overextended in bailing out the country's banks (among other things) while trying to keep taxes low (sound familiar?) The thing is, once they get a deal, they still have to get it through their minority parliament (Irish MPs are elected by multi-member single transferable vote, so majorities are virtually unknown there). And needless to say, a vote on this issue would be a vote of confidence. The government has already agreed to call an election immediately after the necessary legislation is passed, but when huge numbers of people are demanding that the government not agree to the austerity measures the EU and other backers demand in return for a €85 billion loan, one has to wonder if the government's coalition partners are going to be in the mood to co-operate. Several of them are independents, and following a by-election this past week (which was won by Sinn Fein, incidentally) the government has a majority of two seats assuming no defections.

One thing is clear - if Ireland defaults instead of accepting the bailout, things will get very interesting very fast. A lot of bondholders will lose a lot of money, of course, and unless the sky falls on the country quite a few other countries will follow their lead, compounding the situation. My money's on the sky not falling, by the way, though times will get a bit hairy for a while.

And even if Ireland doesn't default, Thomas Walkom in the Star reports that the markets aren't optimistic about two other troubled European economies:

The markets are also betting that two other euro nations, Spain and Portugal, will drop out of the common currency, default on their debts or do both.

Walkom, incidentally, thinks default is only a tiny part of the risks ensuing from this crisis:

Yet perhaps the most distressing element of the Irish crisis is the sense of déjà vu it creates.

In the ‘30s, nations faced with angry bondholders did exactly as Ireland’s government is doing now — raised taxes and cut spending in an effort to persuade financial markets of their fiscal rectitude.

Ireland is even lowering its minimum wage.

As in the 1930s, the Irish government is portraying its actions as inevitable.

As in the ‘30s, its cutbacks — by squeezing even more spending power from the economy — will only make matters worse.

And, as in the ‘30s, governments in Ireland and elsewhere will eventually find that their voters can put up with only so much.

The Great Depression boosted the fortunes of European fascism. We don’t know yet where the politics of this slump will take us.

But unless democratic governments show some imagination, the future doesn’t look pretty. Portuguese workers staged their largest one-day strike in 22 years Wednesday to protest government austerity plans. More troubles are on the horizon.

Now as hinted at above, the main beneficiary, politically, of the crisis in Ireland has been Sinn Fein. They certainly are not what most people would call fascist, though they do have a nationalist streak that bears watching. But as things degenerate in other countries, things could go very differently. Indeed, it already has in places (notably Austria and the Netherlands).

Intel on Iran has telling flaw

2010-11-27T17:51:00.002-06:00

Every so often the prospect of Iran developing nuclear weapons comes up. How likely is it that they will develop such weapons soon? Hard to say, but it would be surprising if they aren't interested, given the deterrence that such an arsenal would give them against regime change from outside. What's interesting, though, is that certain folks don't seem to want the US to wait for real evidence:

The most important intelligence documents used to argue that Iran had a covert nuclear-weapons research-and-development program in 2003 - a set of technical drawings of efforts to fit what appears to be a nuclear payload into the re-entry vehicle of Iran's medium-range ballistic missile, the Shahab-3 - turn out to have a fatal flaw: the drawings depict a re-entry vehicle that had already been abandoned by the Iranian missile program in favor of an improved model.

The re-entry vehicle or warhead shown in the schematics had the familiar "dunce cap" shape of the original North Korean Nodong missile, an Inter Press Service (IPS) investigation has confirmed. But when Iran flight-tested a new missile in mid-2004, it did not have that dunce cap warhead but a new "triconic" or "baby bottle" shape, which was more aerodynamic than the one on the original Iranian missile.

The development of the new missile and warhead had already been under way for years by that time, according to the author of the most authoritative study of the Iranian missile program.

From Asia Times Online. Are the Americans making stuff up again, like the "yellowcake from Niger" business a few years back? Or have they been fed false information by some other party, perhaps someone who is no friend of either Iran or the US?

Has the TSA finally gone too far?

2010-11-25T21:57:00.011-06:00

The recent intensification in US airport security has gone over extremely poorly, and with good reason. Consider what they did to this woman:

Now truth to tell, I'm not sure whether or not X-rays are actually harmful to breast milk. X-rays are a form of ionizing radiation, and not good for living tissue, but I'm not sure how much effect they'd actually have on the milk. Still, I can't blame anyone for preferring to be safe than sorry, especially if it says in the rules that breast milk doesn't have to go through the X-ray. And for trying to point out what the rules actually say, she was put through hell. And I'm sure this is far from the only example of such harassment; if there's anything unusual about this case it might be the fact that the victim was white.

The thing is, even when the rules are followed things are crazy enough. Consider this point raised by Roger Ebert:

It appears that not a single TSA agent has declined to perform a full-body pat down of airline passengers. That includes patting down small children. They're not patted down on a routine basis, but on some occasions they can be and they are. A child under 12, sometimes way under 12, may be required to remove outer clothing and be touched on such areas as the genitals.

This is so high on the WTF scale that it beggars the imagination. All this makes me wonder, though, if there might not be a silver lining of sorts to this very dark cloud. While I'm not sure I'd go so far as the Bishop of London, England in saying that flying is a sin, it is the worst form of travel from a climate perspective, and I suspect that a lot of people will start to think hard about whether they really need to fly after being submitted to indignities like this a few times. It would be interesting to track Greyhound and Amtrak ticket sales before and after the new policies came into place. Of course, if there are signs of a major shift, the airlines will start to lobby for the TSA to be put into the train stations and bus terminals too; can't have unfair competition after all.

And what will happen to tourism? Even if the Americans eventually submit meekly to this stuff, will people whose own countries don't put them through this stuff every time they fly want to visit a place like that? I certainly have no enthusiasm for flying to the US any time soon, that's for sure.

And, predictably, a lot of people are saying that the solution to this problem is to only do it to brown people.

A tale of two jurisdictions

2010-11-24T19:38:00.005-06:00

The vital parts of the expansion of the Red River Floodway are now complete, and none too soon given what next spring could be like. At the Floodway Authority's website there's a very interesting animation posted of how a "700 year" flood might play out in Winnipeg. Now two things stand out about this animation:

If it is accurate, the improvements to the floodway are pretty darned impressive in terms of controlling overland flooding.
The animation with the improvements to the floodway omits any simulation of the effects on sewers.

I checked with someone in the know about this, and was told that for sewer backup, the floodway is of some use but not a whole lot; to deal with this problem you have to improve the sewers. A good start would be to replace combined sewers with separate storm and waste sewers... but that would require the city to actually invest in the future. The city's own website has some info on sewers, complete with a map at the bottom of the page showing where each type of sewage system is used. Ominously, pretty much the whole of the "old" (pre-Unicity) Winnipeg, as well as sizeable chunks of the suburbs, have combined sewers. Hopefully this will be remedied before a 700 year flood strikes; just in case, though, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up a back-up valve...

And if a big flood does strike, I do hope voters know who to be angry with when their basements flood... and to whom to be grateful for the fact that relatively little overland flooding occurs.

Montreal introducing car tax based on number of cylinders

2010-11-24T19:14:00.003-06:00

Good idea I think:

Resident Montreal motorists can expect to be hit next year with a vehicle tax based on the number of cylinders they have under the hood, and that charge will be capped at an “average maximum” of $50 annually, according to documents tabled at Montreal city hall this week.

From the Gazette. Predictably, a some people are up in arms about this, but one of their objections is interesting:

“It is inequitable and unfair that in 2011 a special $50 tax on (vehicle) registrations be imposed only on residents of the island of Montreal,” Vision Montreal leader Louise Harel said in a communiqué, noting that such a tax ought to be applied to all motorists in the Montreal Metropolitan Community, an affiliation of 82 Montreal-area municipalities extending from Mirabel in the north to Richelieu in the south and including the cities of Longueuil and Laval.

Setting aside the rather obvious point that Montreal doesn't have jurisdiction outside the island, it could be argued too that people on the island have less actual need for cars. The city has excellent public transit, and is reasonably friendly to pedestrians and cyclists.

One quibble, though; it would probably make more sense to base the tax on displacement, rather than cylinders per se. If the tax goes through as described above, a GM pickup truck with a 2.9 litre Vortec four will be cheaper to register than a VW with a 2.5 litre five, which seems rather at odds with the intent of the law.

"Dirty electricity" studies fail to stand up to serious scrutiny

2010-11-24T17:35:00.005-06:00

Perhaps you've heard about the so-called "dirty electricity" that's supposedly used by compact fluorescent lamps, among other things, that will make your willy fall off or your body to break out in tumours or something like that. When I heard that story I was immediately suspicious, perhaps because I was reminded on an unconscious level of Andrew Wakefield's allegations about vaccines causing autism. Well, it seems my suspicions were justified:

In an ongoing attempt to keep Canadian politicians informed about the true state of scientific evidence surrounding microwave radiation for communications, the kind used in cell phones and wireless networks, the Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) at the Centre for Inquiry (CFI), Canada submitted a brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health (HESA) last Monday, November 8^th. This year, HESA has been investigating the possible effects of low-level microwave radiation on public health and has deposed many different speakers. The transcripts to two of the interesting depositions can be found here and here, the latter having been conducted just a few weeks ago on October 28^th.
Last week, we published a critique by CFI science advisor Lorne Trottier and electronics engineer Harvey Kovsky of the most recent “scientific” study by Magda Havas, promoter of the idea of “dirty electricity” and electro-hypersensitivity syndrome. This week, on the heels of the reportage by the CBC and an article this Saturday in the Montreal Gazzette, we present another critique, this time of an article that appeared originally in a Canadian National Research Council publication the Environmental Reviews. In this review, B. Blake Levitt, a science journalist who has published 2 books on EHS and the supposed dangers of EMF, and Henry Lai, an original author of the now debunked Bioinitiative Report, present a re-hashing of old science and try to make their case that there is such a thing as EHS and that we should be worried about low-level microwave radiation, an idea that has been refuted by Health Canada and several other agencies.

It is suspected , because Lai, Levitt, and Havas have not had much success in promoting these ideas and have been denied legislative change in the United States, that any adoption of changes to the laws in Canada would strengthen their case in other, larger, jurisdictions. CASS is determined to not let this happen in Canada, and copies of the Havas and Levitt and Lai critiques have been sent to HESA in an effort to counter the fallacious claims being made by these purveyors of bad science.

From Skeptic North (h/t Startled Disbelief). I find it fascinating how these things seem to take hold of societies. A conspiracy theorist would suggest that the promotion of this idea is a plot by the coal industry to keep CFL sales down, but I don't think it's anything that complex (and how would you explain the similar phenomenon with Wakefields' claims about vaccines?) I suspect it's the same sort of thing that makes other urban legends thrive; a tendency to want to believe that the experts are wrong. (Of course, sometimes the experts are wrong, but that's another story). The thing is, unlike most urban legends (or even this guy's strange claim to have developed a reactionless drive), these stories have the potential to do real harm. Indeed, Wakefield's nonsense has been blamed for a dramatic drop in vaccination against polio, and according to some may have undermined efforts to eradicate that disease. And scaring people away from CFLs is potentially worse, given how much we're going to have to reduce our energy consumption in the future.

That said, there is one well-established problem with CFLs, and that's the fact that they contain a small amount of mercury. This is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but just to put things in perspective, coal also contains mercury. In fact, even assuming the worst case scenario where the CFL is tossed in the garbage (no, please don't do this), the CFL is still the lesser evil, if coal is a significant part of the power grid:

That said, from a purely selfish point of view, you might prefer the incandescent bulbs, because if you break a CFL it's you who gets exposed to the mercury.

More international shame for Canada, courtesy of you-know-who

2010-11-24T07:00:00.002-06:00

When you have a dirty but lucrative product, it's apparently not enough to fail to sufficiently regulate it; you have to lobby other countries to stop them from using cleaner alternatives:

Three major departments in the federal government have been actively co-ordinating a communications strategy with Alberta and its fossil-fuel industry to fight international global-warming policies that “target” oilsands production, newly released federal documents reveal.
The documents, obtained by Postmedia News, suggest that Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada as well as the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, have collaborated on an “advocacy strategy” in the U.S. to promote the oilsands and discourage environmental-protection policies.

From the Montreal Gazette. Anyone still think Harper's government has any legitimacy?

Researchers capture sample of antimatter

2010-11-19T08:03:00.002-06:00

Not much, but it's a start:

A team of scientists, including University of Calgary researchers, has captured antimatter for the first time.
The feat, which trapped 38 atoms for 1/10th of a second, is being touted as a major milestone that will test the foundations of physics, said one of the U of C scientists involved with the international project.
"We're definitely not stopping here," said Rob Thompson, the U of C's head of physics and astronomy.
"This is a huge milestone to actually achieve doing this, but it's just the first step into this massive new area we're moving into in terms of possible experiments."
The discovery was made at the world's largest particle physics lab located at CERN -- the European Organization for Nuclear Research -- in Geneva, Switzerland.
Two teams, including a Harvard-led group and a collaboration called ALPHA, which includes the Canadian researchers, are conducting experiments to understand antimatter.
Antimatter has long been regarded as mysterious -- sometimes looked at as the "evil twin" of matter since the two annihilate upon contact, leaving behind pure energy.
It's also a staple of science fiction, used, for example, to fuel Star Trek's starship Enterprise through the galaxy.

From the Calgary Herald. In fact the Star Trek reference might not be out of line; Charles Pellegrino and Jim Powell have been suggesting for years that this might be the key to interstellar travel. They even have a design -- the Valkyrie rocket -- which should theoretically be capable of reaching 92% of the speed of light (enough for relativistic time dilation to be significant). Incidentally, the starships in Avatar are based on this design (Pellegrino was a consultant for that film).

Gordon Campbell has a parting gift for BC

2010-11-18T21:11:00.003-06:00

He's cancelling the income tax cuts:

Premier Gordon Campbell backed away Wednesday from the major tax cut he announced on prime-time television last month, saying it would place too many restraints on his successor as premier.
“I felt it was important, when I decided to step aside as leader, that there be an unfettered opportunity for the new potential leaders to move ahead and make their own decisions about what they wanted to do,” Campbell said.
“I didn’t think it was right for me to lock in — or for this executive council to lock in — the new leader and the potential next executive council in making that decision.”
The planned tax cut had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2011 and would have meant a 15-per-cent reduction in personal income tax rates for the first $72,000 of an individual’s income.

From the Vancouver Sun. Now for what it's worth, I actually agree with this decision; the last thing the province needs now is to lose revenue that's desperately needed for social programs and the like. However, this isn't likely to do his party any good... not that I'm complaining of course.

Free market won't deliver alternatives before oil runs out: study

2010-11-17T17:26:00.004-06:00

A study by American researchers has concluded that oil will run out long before alternatives are ready:

The world will run out of oil around 100 years before replacement energy sources are available, if oil use and development of new fuels continue at the current pace, a US study warns.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis (UC-Davis) used the current share prices of oil companies and alternative energy companies to predict when replacement fuels will be ready to fill the gap left when oil runs dry.
And the study’s findings weren’t very good for the oil-hungry world.
If the world’s oil reserves were the 1.332 trillion barrels estimated in 2008 and oil consumption stood at 85.22 million barrels a day and growing year-y at 1.3 percent, oil would be depleted by 2041, says the study published online last week by Environmental Science and Technology.
But by plugging current stock market prices into a complex equation, UC-Davis engineering professor Debbie Niemeier and postdoctoral researcher Nataliya Malyshkina calculated that a viable alternative fuel to oil will not be available before the middle of next century.

From the Montreal Gazette. This is unsettling, but when you look at the details it turns out it may not be as bleak as it appears:

On the oil supply side, consumption could well decrease in future as more energy-saving measures are introduced and used by consumers, and new oil reserves could become available as extraction techniques improve.
On the alternative fuel side of the equation, the study did not look at nonprofits, government agencies and universities which are developing new fuels, because they are not quoted on the stock market.
And if governments announced new policy initiatives to promote alternative fuel development, share prices of alternative energy companies would rise, and the gap between the end of oil and the kick-in of alternative fuels would shrink.

So the Gazette's headline is more than a little misleading, but we shouldn't be surprised that they didn't use the title I did; it would be unseemly for a capitalist paper to be too obvious about the shortcomings of capitalism. That said, whether governments and nonprofits will step up to the plate is very much an open question. But there's no reason why it can't be done with sensible government policy.

Man on trial for son's massacre

2010-11-15T20:50:00.003-06:00

A year and a half ago, a teenager in Germany took his father's handgun to school and killed 15 people before turning the gun on himself. So since he's dead, they're putting his father on trial for manslaughter:

Jörg K., a businessman, has been a gun fanatic and amateur marksman since his boyhood. He passed on his passion to his son, an adolescent he apparently didn't know well enough. As it turned out, Tim K. developed a hatred for the world and, using the weapon his father had hidden under his sweaters in a bedroom closet as protection against burglars, became a murderer. On March 11, 2009, the 17-year-old shot and killed 12 children and teachers at the Albertville secondary school in Winnenden, a small town located about 20 kilometers north of Stuttgart in southern Germany. He killed three more people and injured 13, some severely, while fleeing from the police. In the end the boy shot and killed himself.

From Der Spiegel. Now to be fair, he's also on trial for violation of Germany's gun control laws (the article doesn't make it entirely clear, but it sounds like careless storage of a firearm). Is that sufficient grounds to convict someone of manslaughter? Maybe, maybe not. But part of what bothers me is this:

The Kleischs could hardly imagine that K. didn't suffer in these moments. But the disturbing thing about it all is that he didn't seem to be suffering. Doris Kleisch says that she would have liked to shake him and "see if he felt anything at all."

A video that was shown in the courtroom shows how police in riot gear surrounded Jörg K.'s house on the day of the rampage. It looks like a scene from a war zone. Then K. appears in the video as he walks into the house with the officers, checks for the Beretta in a bedroom closet, just as he does every night before going to bed. "The weapon is gone," he says in a businesslike tone. Then he looks in the bedside table and says: "The ammunition is gone too."

"How did Mr. K. seem to you?" the chief judge asked the police officer who was at the scene. "Surprisingly calm," the policeman replied. "If it had been my house, I would have been more upset."

Now maybe he really doesn't care, but it seems more likely to me that he's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (after all, wouldn't you, if your kid did that?) And the families seem to be judging him as guilty based on what they see as failure to display sufficient emotion (if I recall correctly, that was believed by many to be a factor in the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain back in the 1980s).

But the biggest thing that bothers me about this is that the families, and the prosecution, seem to want to get their pound of flesh one way or another, and since the actual perpetrator is dead they have to pillory someone else. Is that their idea of justice?

NDP makes gains amid ‘startling’ Tory-Liberal deadlock

2010-11-12T16:57:00.004-06:00

Interesting:

Released Thursday morning, the survey shows Stephen Harper’s team and Michael Ignatieff’s statistically tied. The Conservatives have the support of 29.4 per cent of Canadians compared to 28.6 per cent for the Liberals. Jack Layton’s NDP, however, is at 19.3 per cent – the highest level the party has been at in two years.

Notably, New Democrats are leading among youth and Atlantic Canadians – usually the bastion of the Liberals. And Mr. Graves found that if the vote was restricted to women, the NDP would be tied with the Conservatives, who have tremendous support from older men in Alberta.

The Greens and Bloc, meanwhile, are at 10.7 per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively.

From the Globe. So both the NDP and the Greens are at near-record levels, while the Cons and Libs are both below 30%. I'd be interested to see some seat projections based on this (though it may turn out to be yet another case of "parked" votes that don't mean much).

China lowers US credit rating

2010-11-10T07:56:00.003-06:00

This is interesting:

The dispute between Washington and Beijing about monetary policies and trade imbalances has spilled over into the more arcane world of debt ratings.
Citing concerns about Washington’s capacity to repay debt and the potential impact of another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, an unheralded Chinese bond rating agency has slashed its sovereign credit rating on U.S. government debt to the equivalent of single-A-plus from double-A, with a negative outlook.
The rebuke is mainly symbolic; the rating cut by Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd. will not have any impact on the market. But it is another sign of growing world anger over the U.S. decision to further loosen monetary policy and could be another indication the Chinese are becoming disenchanted with U.S. Treasury bonds.
Major mainstream rating agencies, such as Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's, still give Washington their top, triple-A rating, despite also expressing concerns about soaring debt levels and record deficits.

From CTV. I have to wonder why Dagong's assessment of American debt differs so much from the other agencies. I can't help but wonder, though, if Moody's and Standard and Poor's don't have a bit of a conflict of interest here; if the US dollar collapses those companies, which are US-based, have a lot more to lose. On the other hand, China would have a lot to lose if the dollar collapses too, so it's hard to say.

British troops may face war crimes trials

2010-11-09T16:54:00.001-06:00

Maybe there's a smidgen of justice out there somewhere:

A number of British military interrogators may face war crimes charges after members of their unit filmed themselves while threatening and abusing Iraqi detainees at a secret prison near Basra, the high court heard today.
The men have been referred to the Director of Service Prosecutions (DSP) after an investigation considered whether they had breached the International Criminal Court Act, which prohibits war crimes.

From the Guardian.

Bush planned attacks on Iran and Syria

2010-11-08T18:21:00.003-06:00

Not a big surprise, but he's quite open about this in his memoirs:

Bush, in the 497-page Decision Points, a copy of which was obtained by the Guardian in advance of its publication in the US tomorrow, writes: "I directed the Pentagon to study what would be necessary for a strike."
He adds: "This would be to stop the bomb clock, at least temporarily." Such an attack would almost certainly have produced a conflagration in the Middle East that could have seen Iran retaliating by blocking oil supplies and unleashing militias and sympathisers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.
Bush also discussed with his national security team either an air strike or a covert special forces raid on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility at the request of Israel.

From the Guardian. I wonder how that would have played out? Probably not well...

NAFTA claims against Canada surge

2010-11-05T17:23:00.002-05:00

The North American Free Trade Agreement has had its critics from the get-go (myself included). Here's an example of why:

Foreign investors are increasingly targeting Canada for alleged breaches of the North American free-trade pact and it's costing the federal government millions of dollars in damages and legal fees, according to a new study.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found as of October, 43% of 66 claims under NAFTA's investment chapter were made by foreign investors against Canada.
"The trend over the last five years is alarming. More than half the claims (54%) against Canada since NAFTA came into force over 15 years ago were initiated during this time period," said CCPA senior researcher Scott Sinclair said.
"This trend reflects a growing awareness among foreign investors and corporate trade lawyers of NAFTA investment rights, and an increasing willingness to invoke them to contest public policy measures," he said.

From the Brantford Expositor (my bold). And what kind of public policy measures might those be? Here are a few examples:

April 14, 1997 Challenged Canadian ban on import and inter-provincial trade of gasoline additive MMT.
July 22, 1998 Challenged temporary Canadian ban (Nov. 1995 -Feb. 1997) on export of toxic PCB wastes.
Dec. 24, 1998 Challenged lumber export quota system.
Apr. 23, 2009 Newfoundland provincial government enacted legislation to return water use and timber rights to the crown.

Most of us have heard of this sort of thing before, but it's still disturbing, especially given the escalation in the number of claims of late.

Did Ford's campaign use dirty tricks to keep John Tory out of the race?

2010-11-05T17:05:00.004-05:00

You may recall that John Tory was originally considered a front runner for the Toronto mayoral race, until he declared that he wasn't going to run and thus handed the race to Rob Ford. So it's rather interesting to see a report that one of Ford's top campaign staff went to great lengths to keep Tory from running:

The Rob Ford campaign had one of its members anonymously call John Tory’s radio show and bait him about his integrity in a strategy to keep Tory out of Toronto’s mayoral race.

Nick Kouvalis, Ford’s deputy campaign manager and now the mayor-elect’s chief of staff, told a forum Friday that his success in keeping Tory out of the race was a “huge victory” and “Rob won because of it.”

And now that Ford is elected, he added, the transition team is talking to Tory, the Newstalk 1010 host and chair of the Toronto Summit City Alliance, about playing a possible role in the Ford administration.

Kouvalis disclosed the election tactics less than a week after admitting the Ford campaign set up a fake Twitter account for “queensquaykaren” (aka Karen Philby) — a supposed Smitherman supporter, complete with photo and profile — to covertly obtain a recording of a potentially damaging phone conversation between Ford and an OxyContin drug user.

From the Star (h/t pogge). And are Ford's people trying to deny this? No, just denying that there's anything wrong with doing that:

Kouvalis denied the anonymous call and fake Twitter account were “dirty tricks,” portraying them as a normal part of campaigns done by all sides.

Hmm. Deception is a normal part of campaigning? I guess...

Ontario Liberals shoot down inquiry into G20

2010-11-04T18:52:00.004-05:00

Andrea Horwath recently introduced a private members' bill at Queen's Park to bring about an independent inquiry into what went down at the G20 summit in Toronto earlier this year. Sadly, this bill was voted down handily by both Tories and Liberals. The Liberals' stated reason for opposing an inquiry was that the mess was the feds' fault (why that means the province shouldn't hold an inquiry is unclear to me) while the Tories say it's important to wait until the ongoing whitewash- er, inquiry- completes its work, while disputing (not unreasonably) the Liberals' contention that they had no role in it.

Myself, the biggest question in my mind is why the McGuinty government went along so slavishly with the whole G20 affair in the first place. It would have been very interesting to have the perspective of a fly on the wall of the room where the two levels of government met to plan the operation...

The Harper government suffers a significant blow

2010-11-04T17:23:00.003-05:00

They've lost one of their few competent ministers:

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is resigning from politics for a job at CIBC.

Mr. Prentice announced in the House Thursday afternoon that he is resigning his cabinet post immediately and will leave as an MP by the end of the year. He has accepted a position as vice-chairman of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

From the Globe. This is probably a sign of bad things to come for the Cons (and hence good news for Canada); the talent pool in Harper-land is awfully small. Between idiots like Stockwell Day and Rona Ambrose, and scumbags like John Baird and Vic Toews, they don't have a whole lot left. Furthermore, Prentice was one of the most moderate members of the cabinet, thus reducing the party's appeal to Lib-Con swing voters.

It's a safe bet that we haven't seen the last of Jim Prentice, though. Most likely he'll lay low until Harper crashes and burns (probably within a few years) and then come back as the party's saviour. It might even work.

Vandal appointed to EPC

2010-11-03T18:04:00.002-05:00

This is a surprise:

One of Sam Katz's toughest critics on city council has joined the mayor's inner circle as part of an executive policy committee that has three new faces.

St. Boniface Coun. Dan Vandal, an NDP-affiliated councillor who ran against Katz in the race for mayor in 2004, was appointed to EPC on Tuesday evening, as Winnipeg's mayor followed through on an election-night promise to heal wounds between the political left and right in Winnipeg.
Shortly before the inaugural meeting of Winnipeg's 13th city council, Katz appointed 13-year councillor Vandal, sophomore North Kildonan Coun. Jeff Browaty and rookie Charleswood-Tuxedo Coun. Paula Havixbeck to EPC, which approves most civic legislation before it goes to council.

From the Free Press. This is a good thing I suppose, though I wonder how Vandal will fare (remember what happened to Russ Wyatt).

Federal government rejects Potash Corp. takeover

2010-11-03T17:42:00.005-05:00

This is good news:

The federal government has rejected BHP Billiton's $40 billion hostile takeover of Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan.

Industry Minister Tony Clement said Wednesday Canada wants to attract investment and business, but "some decisions can only be made once … and there's no turning back, ever."

From the Globe. Of course, this is purely to protect Conservative votes in Saskatchewan and neighbouring provinces; if they'd acted on their free market principles they'd have allowed it to go through. Nonetheless, I'd much rather they did the right thing for the wrong reasons than the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Meanwhile, others are interested in stepping up to the plate:

The CEO of a Toronto-based merchant bank has been travelling the globe in recent weeks on behalf of a group of Saskatchewan First Nations, securing an estimated $25 billion in preparation for a bid to rival the hostile takeover attempt of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. by BHP Billiton Ltd.
"We feel the First Nations have a great concept. The idea they have is brilliant. We are looking at capital all over the world," Forbes & Manhattan CEO Stan Bharti said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Miami, where he is meeting with a group of Brazilian investors.
The Indigenous Potash Group, a collection of Saskatchewan First Nations, is preparing a rival bid, said group CEO Ken Thomas. It enlisted Forbes & Manhattan and Toronto-based GMP Securities to find investors and raise the money, Thomas said.

From the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. This sounds like it could be a very good thing for all concerned.

Gordo's gone!

2010-11-03T17:38:00.002-05:00

Gordon Campbell has resigned as premier of BC:

B.C.'s embattled Premier Gordon Campbell announced he was stepping down on Wednesday in Vancouver and said he has asked the B.C. Liberal party to call a leadership convention as quickly as possible “to return public attention to what is important in British Columbia."

“It was always worth the effort,” said Mr. Campbell, who has led the party since 1993 and has served as premier for almost a decade.

Good riddance. Hopefully this won't be enough to save his party from defeat in the next election...

More notes on the US midterms

2010-11-03T07:53:00.003-05:00

As expected, the Republicans have gained control of the House, but not the Senate. Happily Dennis Kucinich, the House's token social democrat, has retained his seat in Ohio, and as noted last night it's also good to see the defeat of Christine O'Donnell and Ilario Pantano, not to mention Sharron Angle who failed to unseat the Democrats' Senate leader in Nevada.

In California, Proposition 19, the bold referendum question on legalizing marijuana, was defeated yesterday, which is a disappointment, but my disappointment by that vote is outweighed by my relief at the defeat of Proposition 23, which would have rolled back the state's measures to control greenhouse gas emissions.

What does all this mean? For the most part, it means of two years of sound and fury signifying nothing. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will be able to pass legislation without the other party's co-operation, and co-operation is one thing that will be in very short supply in this Congress.

Even North Carolina voters have their limits

2010-11-02T21:29:00.006-05:00

Ilario Pantano, the Tea Party endorsed candidate for North Carolina's 7th Congressional district, has conceded defeat. Perhaps his mysterious acquittal on war crimes charges failed to convince voters. Christine O'Donnell, star of this entry, has been defeated in Delaware as well.

On the other hand, it looks like Rand Paul has been elected, along with some other pretty far-out individuals. It doesn't look like they'll gain control of the Senate, though.

Harper's free market principles may have their limits

2010-11-02T17:45:00.003-05:00

BHP's bid for Potash Corporation has put our "fearless" leader in a bit of a bind:

Weighty political opposition to the Potash Corp. takeover from Stephen Harper's hometown of Calgary is complicating the task of reviewing BHP Billiton's bid, Conservative insiders say.

As one senior Tory tells The Globe, this Alberta-based backlash to the BHP deal has ended up broadening the political calculations for Ottawa beyond Saskatchewan.
Richard Haskayne, a veteran of Canadian boardrooms who's helmed several of this country's biggest companies, is one Calgary businessman who's been pressing Tory MPs and cabinet ministers to reject the takeover.

“My neighbour, two doors down, is Jim Prentice and he knows where I stand,” said Mr. Haskayne, after whom the University of Calgary's business school is named.

The Harper government has set itself a deadline of November 3 to rule on the acquisition. It must decide whether the deal is what foreign-takeover legislation calls a “net benefit” to Canada.

From the Globe. Now for what it's worth, I agree with those who say the government should intervene; however this must create a certain amount of cognitive dissonance for Harper...

Big Oil prepared to sue to stop offshore wind farms

2010-11-01T17:09:00.002-05:00

They claim a few turbines would be disruptive to their operations:

The warning over legal action came from trade body Oil and Gas UK. The government is currently consulting on national policy statements, which set out how the UK's ambitious renewable energy targets will be met, with offshore wind turbines a key factor. In its submission, Oil and Gas UK said the policy statements did not take account of the way offshore wind farms could impede mobile drilling rigs, disrupt helicopter flights and get in the way of pipelines and underwater equipment.

From the Guardian. What do you think their real reason is?

Columnist calls for the assassination of Julian Assange

2010-10-30T11:20:00.002-05:00

Naturally, American right wingers like Jonah Goldberg really dislike Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and would like something done about this. But what Goldberg says in this National Review article (h/t Ezra at Popehat) is quite disturbing:

So again, I ask: Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?

It’s a serious question.

Yeah. What the heck is the CIA for, if not for rubbing out people who embarrass the US?

The new Fatal Shore?

2010-10-30T09:50:00.010-05:00

With all the obsession with crime these days, it's hard to even get a word in edgewise about such things as prevention. Just look at what happened in Wednesday's municipal election -- I'm pretty sure that a big part of the outcome was a rejection of anything other than a purely punitive approach to the problem. The thing is, it can't go on forever like this. It costs a heck of a lot to keep people in jail, and doesn't really solve the crime problem anyway -- yet ask the average person on the street how to approach the problem, and they'll likely tell you to get tough, hang 'em high, etc. How will this play out in the long run?

One possibility, of course, is that the general public will come sufficiently to their senses that it will be politically possible to put more focus on rehabilitation. Unfortunately, the likes of Sun Media make it awfully hard to have an intelligent conversation with the average person on this issue, so the "get tough" approach is likely to continue for the forseeable future. But how will society deal with the escalating costs of keeping people incarcerated (not to mention the recidivism rate if convicts' issues aren't properly dealt with while they're on the inside, with is the case now and will only get worse as they incarcerate more and more people). The British found a "solution" to the problem in the late 1700s by setting up penal colonies (most famously Australia, but for a time Bermuda and the American colonies were used for this purpose as well). Of course, that's not so easy to do now that there are no more new frontiers.

Or are there? Recently I came across this story about plans for setting up a Mars colony. What leaps out is this:

Worden's comments prompted speculation that trips to Mars could be only 20 years away. Commentators talked about the difficulties of such a trip because of the cost, estimated at $10 billion US one-way, and the likelihood that the explorers would not be able to ever return to Earth.

My emphasis. It would be tough to get people to volunteer for such a mission, but I bet some will suggest sending criminals. You'd still need a few volunteers to run the place, but the general labourers would be virtually free. This idea is explored in D. G. Compton's 1971 novel Farewell, Earth's Bliss, and I don't doubt that it will be proposed in all seriousness in the years to come. It's not my idea of a good solution to the crime problem, but in one way it would be an improvement on previous penal colonies -- at least in this case it wouldn't involve the displacement and destruction of indigenous peoples, since there are none on Mars.

A sobering look at the public mind

2010-10-29T07:36:00.003-05:00

The success of politicians like Rob Ford is bewildering to a lot of people, who tend to expect that a guy who is so obviously a xenophobic, narrow-minded jerk will be repellent to most people. One response seen in a focus group that Smitherman's team put together is revealing:

During one Marzolini focus group, a middle-aged woman explained that she would overlook personality failings in a mayor – as long as he didn’t waste her taxes.
“It was the most powerful thing I’d ever seen,” recalls campaign manager Bruce Davis. “People knew [Mr. Ford] had these character flaws. They knew all that …”
And, by all appearances, they didn’t care.

From the Globe. For lefties like me, this is disturbing; it paints a picture of narrow-minded suburbanites who don't care how bad a politician is to other people, as long as he or she is good to them. Perhaps this also explains some poll results discussed in another Globe story:

A new EKOS Research survey, released Thursday morning, shows voters “are underwhelmed with Canada’s actions on the world stage.” Asked whether they disapproved or approved of the Harper government’s foreign policies, 37 per cent said they disapproved compared to 21 per cent who approve and 35 per cent who don’t care either way.

“The data seems to suggest that the Tories don't have huge problems on foreign policy,” Mr. Graves told The Globe. “Wins like Haiti and losses like UN net out as mild negative.”

And by "mild negative" what they really mean is "it's not going to make the slightest bit of difference how most people vote". After all, Harper's supporters, like Ford's, care more about how much they pay in taxes than whether the government is bombing children and embarrassing us on the world stage.

Aftermath

2010-10-28T07:33:00.003-05:00

So some of my predictions didn't turn out so well. In retrospect, some of it was predictable (Rod Giesbrecht's role as a spoiler in Elmwood-East Kildonan, for instance). The overall makeup of council hasn't really changed much (in effect, the left lost Elmwood-EK but gained Mynarski). And of course Katz was reelected. And the turnout was high in spite of bad weather, which usually indicates an appetite for change, but here it didn't. So what happened?

I'm not sure, but I suspect that those awful shootings in the North End played a role. Yes, they happened under Katz's watch, but that doesn't matter; the right has been extremely effective in branding themselves as the ones who can solve the problem. They've been so effective in this branding effort that people ignore the evidence when they're sufficiently scared. (For similar reasons, deficits seem to help the right, even when they happen under right wing governments). The high turnout is probably partly explicable by people coming out in hope of voting for Judy, but part of it is people from the suburbs coming out to vote out of fear of Judy. Presumably they think that there'd be a veritable explosion of crime if she occupied the Mayor's office. Whatever...

Some guesses for the municipal election

2010-10-26T20:40:00.006-05:00

Bartley Kives, in this Free Press article, makes some predictions about how things will play out tomorrow (about halfway down, though the whole article is worth reading). In some cases I have opinions on the matter myself.

Charleswood-Tuxedo: With seven candidates and no incumbent, this would seem to be about as wide open as it gets. Kives considers Havixbeck and Hannah to be the top contenders. My money would be on Havixbeck, since the Tory machine will be working for her, and when you have that many candidates it is a advantageous to have a lot of volunteers to pull the vote.

Mynarski: Again, we have a freshly vacated ward with a large field of candidates. Here, though, turnout is traditionally low, and thus having a lot of volunteers is even more critical. And the NDP has never had a shortage of volunteers. For this reason, I'm calling this one for Eadie.

Elmwood-East Kildonan: Kives calls it a three way race. I'm inclined to narrow it down to Robinson or Giesbrecht; Steen might have a better chance if he didn't open his mouth. In theory, Robinson should have this in the bag, but Giesbrecht is doing dangerously well. This could go either way.

Old Kildonan: Kives thinks Sharma has the edge; I don't know enough about that race to agree or disagree.

Daniel McIntyre: Kives goes no further than to predict that "one of the three lefties" (Smith, Bellamy, or Gilroy-Price) will win. Myself I'd give the edge to Bellamy, both due to the aforementioned organizational factor and due to the fact that Wolseley seems pretty solidly in his camp (and face it, Wolseley has a higher turnout than the West End). But Smith is not to be underestimated either.

River Heights-Fort Garry: Kives puts this as impossible to predict. To my mind it mostly turns on how annoyed people really are about those traffic circles; if Orlikow loses River Heights he's done for. But this may turn out to be a case of much ado about nothing; I do see a fair number of letters and comments defending the circles. Tough call.

St. Norbert: Kives figures a major upset would be necessary to unseat Swandel, but he considers this a possibility. He implies that this would imply a shift to the left; however, it could equally happen through a generalized shift against incumbents. In that case, his prediction -- that Swandel could only lose in a situation where the right gets severely stomped -- might be unsound. If Swandel and Orlikow are both defeated in an anti-incumbent wave, for instance, the net effect on the balance of power is zero.

St. Charles: This is another race that I know too little to challenge Kives' comments (essentially that Nordman has the edge but that Dobson has a chance).

Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry: Strangely, Kives lists this as a race where the incumbent could lose, although he thinks it unlikely. Myself, I would have no hesitation about calling it for Gerbasi.

St. James-Brooklands: Kives also lists this as one where there's an outside chance of defeating the incumbent. I call this for Fielding.

Point Douglas, St. Boniface, St. Vital, and Transcona: I can't really argue with Kives' contention that these are "virtually locks", though I don't know enough about St. Vital to say I agree with him on that one either.

OK, but what about the big one? Kives makes no prediction here, but what about me? Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I'm going to call this one for Judy. The thing is, there's a huge force of volunteers supporting the NDP-backed candidates, and most of the votes they pull will go to Judy. In addition, some of their opponents are as well. For instance, regardless of whether Harvey Smith or Keith Bellamy takes Daniel McIntyre, both of them are going to be getting a lot of people out to vote, and nearly all of those folks will vote for Judy. The situation with existing patterns of voter turnout is a bit murkier; in southern and suburban parts of the city, which tend to favour Katz, turnout tends to be higher. On the other hand, among identified supporters, this poll has concluded that Judy's supporters are more committed to actually getting to the polls than Sam's. Naturally, polls can be wrong (see Ford's margin of victory in Toronto for an example) but I think Winnipeg might finally break out of its long cycle of reelecting mayors until they retire (or die). Here's hoping...

Anti-incumbent sentiment strong in much of Ontario

2010-10-26T17:28:00.008-05:00

Notwithstanding the fact that Hazel McCallion was reelected with a huge margin (along with her counterparts in Brampton, Oakville, Markham, Richmond Hill and Ajax) there was quite a strong shift against incumbents. Vaughan's mayor, and several veteran councillors, went down to defeat yesterday, and so did the mayors of Burlington, Hamilton, and Oshawa. Five incumbent Toronto councillors, representing the right as well as the left, were defeated. Outside of the 905, the mayors of London, Ottawa, Greater Sudbury and Thunder Bay all went down as well.

Now I'd be more than happy to see this pattern repeat itself in Winnipeg tomorrow, but there's something about this that makes me a bit uneasy. The fact that this trend has victims across the political spectrum suggests that instead of voting for a clear platform (or even against one) they're voting against anyone they perceive as being too experienced. Under this mentality, once a politician gains sufficient experience to figure out how to do the job, he or she should be gotten rid of immediately. It's no coincidence that "vote out all incumbents" is a common cry from teabaggers, who would like nothing better than to insure that governments are unable to actually do anything. And consider this -- teabaggers are always going on about the need for term limits, but balk at campaign spending limits. Apparently it's better to stop someone from running at all, than to limit the amount they can spend on their campaign. And guess who that tends to favour?

So tomorrow, Winnipeggers, I'd like you to vote out Sam Katz, but don't do it simply because he's the incumbent. Do it because he sucks, and because Judy will be good.

Ford cruises to victory in Toronto, Waterloo decides General Ripper was right

2010-10-25T20:07:00.013-05:00

It seems that those polls suggesting that Smitherman was within striking range of Ford were inaccurate:

Rob Ford, the city councillor who campaigned against waste and business-as-usual at City Hall, is the new mayor of Toronto.

With 90 per cent of polls reporting, Mr. Ford took almost 49 per cent of the vote, compared to 34 per cent for former Ontario deputy premier George Smitherman and 11 per cent for third-place finisher Joe Pantalone, the current deputy mayor.

From the Globe. How much damage he can do depends on who gets elected to council; my guess is that he won't have enough allies to accomplish most of what he'd like to, but I don't know. Those more familiar with the makeup of council are encouraged to comment.

Edited to add: OK, this looks bad.

Meanwhile, in Waterloo Region, all three cities have reelected their mayors, and Waterloo itself seems to have voted strongly against any formal talks with Kitchener about amalgamation in a referendum. In a separate referendum, they narrowly voted to discontinue the fluoridation of the city's drinking water.

Also notable is that Brenda Halloran is the first Waterloo mayor to be reelected in 16 years. It strikes me that Winnipeg also has a pattern that could use breaking, namely the fact that we haven't thrown out an incumbent mayor since 1956. In two days we'll find out if the pattern will hold for another four...

A guide to Toronto's mayoral candidates

2010-10-22T18:16:00.004-05:00

Courtesy of the Star. Some highlights:

Taxes: Ford wants to abolish the land transfer tax, while Smitherman and Pantalone want to keep it. The situation with property taxes is interesting. As noted previously, Smitherman is actually even more aggressive than Ford on this issue - he wants to freeze them, while Ford merely wants to index them to inflation.

Transit: Ford, much like Katz in Winnipeg, wants to tear up the existing plans and renegotiate. Pantalone wants to continue, while Smitherman actually wants to add to existing plans.

Other environmental issues: Both Pantalone and Smitherman scored high here (20 and 18 out of 20 respectively). Ford didn't bother to answer the questionnaire.

Contracting out: Pantalone wants to freeze it; both Ford and Smitherman want to do it. Of the two, Smitherman is arguably worse than Ford, since he is open to contracting out bus routes in addition to garbage and recycling.

Debt: Pantalone figures there are higher priorities, and that the debt can be kept constant. Both Ford and Smitherman want to actively reduce it by selling city assets.

Hiring of staff: None of them advocate massive layoffs. Pantalone wishes to continue the present policy, which is to simply evaluate whether it's necessary to fill a given vacancy. Ford and Smitherman are much more aggressive here, wanting to eliminate 1,500 and 1,300 jobs, respectively, by attrition.

Size of council: Pantalone and Smitherman want to leave well enough alone, while Ford wants to cut it in half.

Looking at it in this way, Smitherman does seem to be somewhat preferable to Ford overall, and I certainly think the venom that some have directed towards those who advocate tactical voting is a bit excessive. Nonetheless, I still think Smitherman would remain mayor for a lot longer than Ford would if elected, and that could be a negative in itself. So I'd still urge progressive Torontonians to hold out for Joe.

America rediscovers the bicycle

2010-10-21T21:14:00.005-05:00

This is a positive development:

America is known for its enduring love affair with the automobile. But in the last few years cities across the US have reported a surge in bicycle use, as people search for greener, healthier - and cheaper - transport options. The BBC's Daniel Nasaw looks at what Washington DC is doing to push two-wheeled travel.

America is a land of long distances, of thousands of virtually empty square miles of prairie, farmland and baking desert and frozen tundra.
US cities sprawl on a level unseen in Europe, Canada, and Australia, a consequence of transport priorities that have long favoured motor vehicles. And in all but a handful of US cities, it is virtually impossible to get by without a car.
But in recent years, amid widespread concern about US dependence on foreign oil, high petrol prices, signs of global warming and an obesity epidemic, a number of US cities have taken steps to increase bicycle usage.

These cities hope that by adding relatively low-cost bicycle lanes, bike parking and bike sharing programmes and making other city plan adjustments, they can lessen traffic congestion, reduce the strain on public transport, and promote healthier citizens.

From the Beeb. The biggest thing that stands out for me is the fact that Canadian and Australian cities themselves sprawl on a level that I'm pretty sure is unseen in Europe, which makes me wonder if American cities are really that much worse than ours, or if the author has a romanticized image of Canada and Australia. There doesn't seem to be a byline on the article, so I don't know if the author is from the UK, the US, or somewhere else. I kind of doubt s/he comes from Canada or Australia, though. Seriously; people commute to Toronto from Waterloo, and I've even heard of people driving from Stratford for crying out loud. That's 150 km each way, five days a week. Are the Americans worse than that??

LA County sheriff vows to ignore law if pot decriminalized

2010-10-20T17:09:00.005-05:00

As mentioned previously, California voters will be deciding on Proposition 19, a referendum question on legalizing marijuana. The sheriff of Los Angeles County is not impressed:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said on Friday that the voters don’t matter. His deputies’ enforcement of marijuana laws would not change even if voters approved Proposition 19, which would legalize cannabis in California, on November 2, according to the Sheriff.

Source (h/t Ken at Popehat). If this does indeed happen, one hopes the authorities will do something about the matter (my suggestion would be charge Baca with kidnapping if he arrests anyone for this).

Katz in the lead again, but support soft -- poll

2010-10-20T08:00:00.003-05:00

The latest poll has incumbent Sam Katz back in the lead:

Mayor Sam Katz has a six-point lead on Judy Wasylycia-Leis as Winnipeg's mayoral race enters the home stretch, but a more committed core of support for the challenger suggests election night may be a nail-biter.

Katz enjoys the support of 38 per cent of Winnipeg voters while Wasylycia-Leis has 32 per cent, according to a Leger Marketing telephone survey commissioned by the Winnipeg Free Press and CBC News.

Source. While this might be good news for Katz, there's a complication:

Survey respondents were asked to rate their interest in the race, on a scale of one to 10. The average interest for a Wasylycyia-Leis supporter was 6.5 out of 10, while Katz supporters averaged 5.4 out of 10, Scholz said.

Furthermore, 25 per cent of Wasylycia-Leis supporters rated their interest at nine or 10 out of 10, compared to only nine per cent of Katz supporters who did so.

"Her voters are significantly more interested in this election than his voters," Scholz said.

"That means her voters are more likely to come out than his are. If there's anything to prevent them, such as bad weather or a TV show, there's a good chance he's not going to get the vote out."

So, if Judy's campaign is able to keep things moving (not to mention the campaigns of council candidates who are onside with her) she has an excellent chance of winning.

More commentary on the Toronto mayoral race

2010-10-19T21:22:00.005-05:00

Much as the prospect of teabaggers winning control of the US Congress is a bit worrisome (but see here for some perspective on that), the prospect of someone who is a teabagger in all but name becoming mayor of Canada's largest city is more than a little stomach-churning. But as noted before, not everyone thinks Smitherman is enough of an improvement on Ford to be worthy of support. The Star's Royston James has this to say:

So, before you hold your nose and vote Smitherman, you should ask yourself: What is it about Ford that scares me? Who and what am I voting for? Why am I voting against someone? Because, holding your nose and voting, well, stinks — especially after the vote.

So what are you want from next Monday’s vote?

If your priority is to get someone at city hall who can stand on the international and national stage and represent Toronto — because he speaks well and “looks like a mayor,” then maybe Smitherman gets your vote hands-down. His years as deputy premier were a rehearsal for the role. He is motor mouth.

If your priority is to continue the legacy left by outgoing mayor David Miller — an ethic of growth in city services and civic staff, bike lanes and European-style streetcars, environmental initiatives and making Toronto the greenest city on the planet — then Joe Pantalone is your candidate.

And if you are concerned about city hall spending and the growth of the city’s budget and the perennial fiscal deficit even after hundreds of millions of tax dollars have been added to the ledger, then Ford has earned a penny-pinching reputation.

Now, if you find Ford’s anti-spending policies so repulsive that he must be stopped, then you might be careful with your dalliance with Smitherman, especially if your concern is the diminution or destruction of city services. On that score, both candidates are closer than the Anybody-but-Ford crowd lets on.

From the city budget perspective, Smitherman may even be worse for you.

That sounds strange given what we already know about Ford, but James makes some good points:

First, he advocates a tax freeze in 2011, turning his back on some $60 million he obviously needs. Not even Ford does that.

Second, Smitherman plans to run up to Queen’s Park for a $100 million subsidy to balance the books. Again, he’s alone on that. And he suggests he will get this money even though his budget numbers show the city with a surplus of $50 million. In other words, his friend Dalton will give him $100 million and add to the province’s ballooning deficit so Toronto can net a $50 million surplus.

These two points are relevant because Smitherman intends to spend more on a range of platform promises than either Pantalone or Ford. So, he needs more “savings” to balance the books.

Now on the other side of the coin, of course, is the fact that Ford is so personally offensive. No need to go over the reasons again and again; the guy is ridiculous. And there's no doubt that the next four years will be rather embarrassing for Torontonians if Ford wins (perhaps even worse than Lastman's final term). Nonetheless, I stand by my prediction that if Ford does win he will either serve a single term, or else moderate his behaviour. And in any case, it's not a case of the entire city council being taken over by Ford clones; I'm pretty sure he won't have the votes on council to do all the crazy things he says he wants to do. So all things considered, if I lived in Toronto, I'd feel fine about casting my vote for Pantalone.

Teabagger doesn't understand the Constitution

2010-10-19T20:54:00.006-05:00

You'd think people who are constantly ranting about the importance of upholding the Constitution would have bothered to read it. Apparently not:

The US constitution has its quirks but it is crystal clear on one issue: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," begins the first amendment, adopted in 1791. But more than 200 years later, its meaning appears to be lost on Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party favourite running for a US Senate seat.
At a debate today for the Delaware Senate seat once occupied by Vice President Joe Biden, O'Donnell appeared to be nonplussed by the wording of the first amendment, repeatedly returning to the subject and sounding incredulous after her Democratic opponent Chris Coons attempted to explain it to her.
When Coons told her the text of the constitution prohibited government from establishing any religion, O'Donnell replied in apparent bewilderment: "You're telling me that's in the first amendment?"

From the Guardian. Rather strange. It gets better, though, because the teabaggers, for the most part, subscribe to a school of constitutional thought known as originalism, the idea that when interpreting the Constitution, every effort should be made to see what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote it. Well, in this case we have some good evidence for the intention:

Not only is the first amendment perhaps the most famous part of the constitution but the "establishment clause", as it is known, is the subject of legal precedent stretching back into the 19th century. No less an authority than Thomas Jefferson, one of the constitution's authors, declared the clause's aim to build "a wall of separation between church and state".

My emphasis. Things are going to get rather interesting for some of these people when they find themselves actually getting elected (and I suspect far to many of them will for my liking). Gwynne Dyer thinks, though, that this might not be the disaster that some fear:

If all of the retired white people vote, and only the usual midterm proportion of all the other demographics does, then the Democrats will lose both houses of Congress.

So why isn’t Obama more worried about it?

He will certainly regret that so many long-serving Democratic senators and congressmen are going to lose their seats this autumn, but it really does not much matter to him who controls the Congress for the next two years.

He can’t hope to get any more legislation even through the current Congress since the Democrats lost their “super-majority” of 60 seats in the Senate last January, so what’s the difference?

Nor does Obama actually have to get more legislation through Congress right now. It would be nice to have a tough climate-change bill, no doubt, but from a political point of view, there is no new law that he simply must pass before he faces reelection himself in 2012.

Indeed, he stands a very good chance of winning a second term in 2012, in large part because of what is going to happen this November.

From the Georgia Straight. Essentially, Dyer thinks that the teabaggers will show their true colours, yet be unable to actually accomplish anything:

Getting majorities in both houses of Congress will leave the Republicans nowhere to hide on the critical issue of cutting the huge federal deficit. They have already said that they will not raise taxes—even for those earning more than $250,000 a year—and they have pledged not to cut defence spending.

What’s left? The only other big-ticket items in the budget are entitlements: health care and pensions.

The United States has not yet gone through the painful debate about how to tame the deficit that has already happened in most European countries, but it will have to do so soon.

That poses a particular problem for Republicans, because if they will not raise taxes on the rich or cut defence spending, then they have to support brutal cuts in health care and pensions or lose all credibility as deficit-cutters.

But cutting entitlements would alienate the Republicans’ own most important demographic: older white people. They will not risk that.

Dyer also points out that any ridiculous piece of legislation that they come up with, even if it passes both houses of Congress, is subject to presidential veto. The one thing he does not mention is that if the Republicans get supermajorities in both houses, they will be able to override his veto. Hopefully -- and probably -- that won't happen.

Teabagger strategy for midterms revealed

2010-10-17T16:15:00.001-05:00

It's called voter suppression:

What was once an isolated story of one Republican group trying to suppress the Democratic vote is now turning into a much larger effort on the part of the entire Republican Party. Numerous stories have now emerged of various Republican candidates and conservative groups engaging in practices which they say are designed to stop voter fraud, but liberals claim the real goal is to keep legitimate Democratic voters from going to the polls.
The first evidence of a voter suppression effort came in the form of an audio tape of a Tea Party meeting in Wisconsin. In the meeting, one leader describes a concerted effort on the part of the Tea Party, the Republican Party, and Americans for Prosperity. The plan involved sending mailers to voters the group considered suspect voters. The mailer would warn the individuals that if they did not respond they may not be able to vote. That strategy has been used before as part of what is called the "voter caging" strategy. Under the strategy, many voters are effectively discouraged from voting because they believe (falsely) that they had to return the mailer from the private organization. In addition, the Wisconsin conservative group stated that they were planning to send a "team" of lawyers to districts where the mailers would possibly be used to challenge the votes of some citizens.

Following the Wisconsin story, another story came out concerning Republican senatorial candidate Mark Kirk. In an audio tape leaked to the press, Kirk can be heard telling his audience about his campaign's plan to send teams of lawyer to districts in Illinois which are dominated by African-America, Democratic voters. Kirk referred to these areas as "vulnerable districts" which would need to be monitored closely by his lawyers, but he did not feel the need to monitor areas dominated by white, Republican voters.

From here (h/t jblaque).

Could a coat of paint make wind turbines safer for wildlife?

2010-10-16T18:33:00.002-05:00

Opponents of wind turbines often point to reports that they are responsible for significant mortality among some animals, especially birds and bats. There's controversy over the accuracy and significance of those reports, but it's certainly worth looking at ways of reducing wind farms' impact on wildlife. Which makes this a valuable discovery:

A study has revealed that a wind turbine's colour affects how many insects it attracts, shedding more light on why the turbines occasionally kill bats and birds.

Scientists say that turbines, most commonly painted white or grey, draw in insects. These then lure bats and birds - as they pursue their prey - into the path of the turbine blades.

Support for the idea comes from another study showing that bats are most often killed by turbines at night and in summer, when insects are most abundant.
"It had been speculated that insects may be attracted to turbine structures for some reason and this then could attract insectivorous species, such as birds and bats, to forage in the vicinity," said PhD student Chloe Long of Loughborough University, UK.
However, she added, "no other study has looked in detail at what specific insect species might be attracted to turbine installations or why".
So Miss Long and her Loughborough colleagues, Dr James Flint and Dr Paul Lepper, conducted the first empirical study of insect attraction to wind turbines, the results of which are published in the European Journal of Wildlife Research.

From the BBC. Apparently painting the turbines purple would be the best way to minimize the number of insects attracted to them.

Yet more water troubles

2010-10-14T21:44:00.003-05:00

This time it's in Syria:

AR RAQQAH, Syria — The farmlands spreading north and east of this Euphrates River town were once the breadbasket of the region, a vast expanse of golden wheat fields and bucolic sheep herds.

Now, after four consecutive years of drought, this heartland of the Fertile Crescent — including much of neighboring Iraq — appears to be turning barren, climate scientists say. Ancient irrigation systems have collapsed, underground water sources have run dry and hundreds of villages have been abandoned as farmlands turn to cracked desert and grazing animals die off. Sandstorms have become far more common, and vast tent cities of dispossessed farmers and their families have risen up around the larger towns and cities of Syria and Iraq.

From the New York Times. This should be a familiar refrain to regular readers of this blog (see for example this or this). And we're not likely immune to this stuff either. Danny Blair, a climatologist at the University of Winnipeg, thinks we should be preparing in advance for trouble:

It's time for Canadians to wake up to the reality of climate change. Many already do understand that the consequences of climate change for our part of the world and the world as a whole are profound, but many do not. Of course, there are both positive and negative aspects to climate change, but it is increasingly clear the climate trends that will almost certainly prevail throughout this century will leave us with a world in which the benefits of climate change will be swamped by its environmental, economic and humanitarian costs.

From the Free Press. And what might some of these costs be?

On the other hand, insects and weeds will also flourish in a warmer world, perhaps necessitating an increase in the use of pesticides. Warmer summers will also increase the demand for energy to cool our buildings and will increase the frequency of heat-related health problems. Forest fires will become more frequent and the winter recreation season will be shortened. Importantly, the network of winter roads across Manitoba will become even less reliable than is already the case, causing significant and costly impacts.
Impacts related more directly to water are likely to be even more significant. Climate change will likely result in higher annual precipitation totals across Canada, but they also show that the summers will be drier. With more of the annual precipitation falling in the winter and more heat available to evaporate surface water, it is quite likely that the Prairie provinces will have to suffer through more frequent and more severe droughts. Ironically, it is also likely that floods will become even more problematic than they are today, as the hydrological cycle kicks into a higher gear. Thus, the survivability of the settlements of the southern prairies already stressed by the ups and downs in agricultural productivity may become even more tenuous.

It's worth noting that when scientists try to predict the fine details of the effects of climate change there is an element of speculation involved (and it should be noted that Blair is cautious himself, using words like "likely" rather than making definitive statements). Climate is pretty complicated stuff, and we should be preparing for a number of eventualities.

One eventuality that Manitoba should definitely be preparing for, though (and yes, I've harped on this in the past) is the melting of the glaciers in the Rockies. Right now, the Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers are flowing very nicely indeed, fed by the melting glaciers... but in a few decades the glaciers will be gone, and then those rivers will be a lot smaller. The probably won't dry up entirely, since it will still rain and snow periodically, but Manitoba Hydro should be planning for this now by getting other clean energy sources online as quickly as possible. Ideally, what we should have is enough solar and wind capacity to keep Jenpeg closed enough of the time that Lake Winnipeg can be kept near its current level. Will we do it? That remains to be seen...