Damn straight

Obo the clown makes a good point:

Why are so few people prepared to just stand on their own and, more importantly, be proud of that fact? Why do people have to subject themselves to some laughable idea of "community", rather than just be an individual who voluntarily interacts with other individuals when it's to both parties' benefit?

And why am I regarded as a "beyond-the-fringe" nutjob for wanting to be this?

That's actually an extremely important question. Wish I knew the answer.

Fun with copyright

Via Boing Boing: Lewis "The Gift" Hyde talks Creative Commons and sharing. Check it out.

Thoughts on drugs

Pharma drugs, that is.

The Age of Mammon

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.com:

As our economy hurtles towards its meeting with destiny, the political class seeks to assign blame on their enemies for this Greater Depression. The Republicans would like you to believe that Bill Clinton, Robert Rubin, Chris Dodd, and Barney Frank and their Community Reinvest Act caused the collapse of our financial system. Democrats want you to believe that George Bush and his band of unregulated free market capitalists created a financial disaster of epic proportions. The truth is that America has been captured by a financial class that makes no distinction between parties. These barbarians have sucked the life out of a once productive nation by raping and pillaging with impunity while enriching only them. They live in 20,000 square foot $10 million mansions in Greenwich, CT and in $3 million dollar penthouses on Central Park West.

Read the rest.

Thoughts on political division

Andrew Potter, via Macleans.ca:

For starters, I think it suggests that the current opposition by the left to the government over the census decision is largely tactical. But this doesn’t mean the left is being hypocritical, not at all: I think it involves a very welcome abandonment by the left its long-standing hostility to the liberal state. Finally, I think it involves a concession that statistical information is not inherently politically biased — that what matters is how it is gathered, under what circumstances, and for what purposes.

Ultimately, the LF census has to be defended on its own merits — what policies or programs will it serve, and do these themselves serve the public interest. Stephen Gordon is right: framing the debate in terms of left versus right only obscures what is really at stake.

Read the rest.

Thoughts on guns

Rex Murphy in the Post:

Whether for convenience or from timidity, the Harper Conservatives do everything with the gun registry except close it down. It is, in its way, curiously, a much longer version of what Barack Obama is doing with Guantanamo Bay — a hot-button issue that the U.S. President presses when he needs to charge his base, but which, now nearly two years into his mandate and despite all promises to the contrary, is still open.

Stephen Harper was up in Whitehorse this week as the gun-control debate started rumbling through its — I don’t know — sixth or seventh variation. And there he was in the majestic northern setting rattling on about the perils of a “coalition” between the Bloc, Libs and NDP — in other words, priming the pump for a Fall election. Nothing reinforces this threat more than the fact that the Canadian public has been dragged once again into the middle of the most tired, repetitious, and pointless policy debate imaginable.

The Conservatives have been in power, more or less, for four years now. They should be ashamed of themselves that it’s even possible to be discussing the long-gun registry now, let alone be testing it out as an “issue” — again — for an upcoming election.

Read the rest.

'Nuff said.

Today's reading

Alright, here's the latest.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Yet more news from the BC Liberal accounting dept.

At Defend Geert Wilders: Dutch minorities warn of risks from anti-Islam party.

Cough gasp choke

Mark Tapscott, via the Washington Examiner: Little-known fact: Obama's failed stimulus program cost more than the Iraq war:

* Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.

* Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.

Ye gads! H/t to Obnoxio.

Hey, I'm in a survey

Blazing Cat Fur conducted a survey, and yours truly sent in one of many responses. Check it out, eh?

Because I can

Darth Vader does Tai Chi. Seriously:

Star Wars Tai Chi from John Leo on Vimeo.

H/t to Boing Boing.

Damn home-owners associations

From The Week: Top 7 insane homeowners association rules:

The astonishingly restrictive ways of homeowners associations (HOAs) came under scrutiny this month when a Sussex Square, Virginia, HOA demanded that a 90-year-old World War II vet remove an unapproved flag pole from his front yard. After receiving support from members of Congress, and even the Obama administration, Medal of Honor recipient Van T. Barfoot, who once singlehandedly took on three Nazi tanks, triumphed in his quest to fly Old Glory. Other homeowners haven't been as lucky in their battles against their own HOAs' "fascist" rules. Here are seven of the most controversial commandments:

Read the rest. H/t to Boing Boing.

Fun with airport security

Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic:

I could have ripped up these counterfeit boarding passes in the privacy of a toilet stall, but I chose not to, partly because this was the renowned Senator Larry Craig Memorial Wide-Stance Bathroom, and since the commencement of the Global War on Terror this particular bathroom has been patrolled by security officials trying to protect it from gay sex, and partly because I wanted to see whether my fellow passengers would report me to the TSA for acting suspiciously in a public bathroom. No one did, thus thwarting, yet again, my plans to get arrested, or at least be the recipient of a thorough sweating by the FBI, for dubious behavior in a large American airport. Suspicious that the measures put in place after the attacks of September 11 to prevent further such attacks are almost entirely for show—security theater is the term of art—I have for some time now been testing, in modest ways, their effectiveness. Because the TSA’s security regimen seems to be mainly thing-based—most of its 44,500 airport officers are assigned to truffle through carry-on bags for things like guns, bombs, three-ounce tubes of anthrax, Crest toothpaste, nail clippers, Snapple, and so on—I focused my efforts on bringing bad things through security in many different airports, primarily my home airport, Washington’s Reagan National, the one situated approximately 17 feet from the Pentagon, but also in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago, and at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (which is where I came closest to arousing at least a modest level of suspicion, receiving a symbolic pat-down—all frisks that avoid the sensitive regions are by definition symbolic—and one question about the presence of a Leatherman Multi-Tool in my pocket; said Leatherman was confiscated and is now, I hope, living with the loving family of a TSA employee). And because I have a fair amount of experience reporting on terrorists, and because terrorist groups produce large quantities of branded knickknacks, I’ve amassed an inspiring collection of al-Qaeda T-shirts, Islamic Jihad flags, Hezbollah videotapes, and inflatable Yasir Arafat dolls (really). All these things I’ve carried with me through airports across the country. I’ve also carried, at various times: pocketknives, matches from hotels in Beirut and Peshawar, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, eight-ounce tubes of toothpaste (in my front pocket), bottles of Fiji Water (which is foreign), and, of course, box cutters. I was selected for secondary screening four times—out of dozens of passages through security checkpoints—during this extended experiment. At one screening, I was relieved of a pair of nail clippers; during another, a can of shaving cream.

Read the rest. H/t to Smyke.

Good fun.

Chris Selley FTW

Via the Post:

It’s possible this forthcoming RCMP report on the long-gun registry contains new information that vindicates the program (though I’ve yet to hear a single slightly novel argument for or against it this week, from anyone). Perhaps it will finally point to a single crime that it’s prevented. Perhaps it will abandon the maddening law enforcement habit of telling Canadians how many times officers consulted the registry and explain the concrete, positive results of those consultations. I doubt it, though — and so should everyone else until they have the report in their hands. If the Mounties will commission junk science to bolster their bias against harm reduction programs, why wouldn’t they commission junk science to bolster their bias in favour of the long-gun registry?

That bias is no mystery. After 15 years of ghoulishly partisan, intellectually denuded arguments for and against the registry, the program is far too poisonous to salvage. But the concept of gun registration as a useful law-enforcement tool is perfectly defensible if it’s not sold as the only alternative to spitting on 14 murdered women’s graves. The registry certainly doesn’t make police officers’ lives any more difficult or less safe. It’s conceivable that it could someday help them solve a crime. So why wouldn’t they support it?

But the G20 offers another more basic explanation: The police enjoy wielding power. They’re in favour of having more power, and they’re opposed to having less. Eleven hundred arrests — 900 of them bogus, and counting.

Read the rest.

Freedom in Cuba

Got this in my inbox from Amnesty International ( yes, that Amnesty International ) the other day, and although I'm jumping the gun a little, I thought I'd share it with y'all now:

Hi all

Amnesty's Cuba Co-Ordinator reminded us that Tuesday 31 August marks the 5th International Blog Day. To mark it, we would be keen if as many people as possible could spread the word about Cuba. We've recently blogged about the fact that despite the recent agreement made by the Cuban authorities to release 52 prisoners of conscience, freedom of expression in Cuba remains at risk. Cuban bloggers have to dictate their posts via phone or send them via email, and are usually unable to read their own blogs. However, through their entries bloggers manage to send out information about the human rights situation in the country, trying to fill the gap created by the lack of independent media.

On International Blog Day - bloggers are asked to post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. We'd be delighted if you could help Amnesty in its Freedom of Expression in Cuba campaign by including in your recommendations on Tuesday a Cuban independent blog

Here are two examples of independent blogs from Cuba. Please note that Amnesty International does not necessarily endorse the content:

http://voicesbehindbars.wordpress.com/ - blog (English translation) of Pablo Pacheco, journalist jailed for 30 years in the March 2003 crackdown on dissidents. He was released in July 2010 with the offer of moving to Spain, where he continues to blog. As a Prisoner of Conscience for 7 years he managed with great difficulty to blog from prison. This blog also has contributions from current Cuban Prisoners of Conscience blogging from prison.

http://desdecuba.com/generationy/ - blog (English translation) of Yoani Sánchez, who has won several international prizes for digital journalism but has never been granted permission to leave Cuba to collect her awards. She says:” Generation Y is a Blog inspired by people like me, with names that start with or contain a "Y". Born in Cuba in the '70s and '80s, marked by schools in the countryside, Russian cartoons, illegal emigration and frustration”. It provides a fascinating insight into everyday life in Cuba and the struggles dissidents face.

Thanks all!

Happy Blogging

Amnesty Blog Project

The redesign

Yeah....so the blog has been redesigned. Let me know what you think - any suggestions?

Today's reading

Alright, here's the latest.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Are federal Conservatives going to wear the Harmonized Sales Tax?

At Defend Geert Wilders: Dutch Christian Democrats split over stance on Wilders; and German minister lashes out at Wilders.

It's a start

What ho, fiscal conservatism? By Elizabeth Thompson, via the Globe and Mail:

Hundreds of government workers who handle employment insurance claims are about to join the ranks of the unemployed, The Canadian Press has learned.

In a bid to balance its budget, Service Canada is cutting 600 employees across the country on top of another 600 who were let go in May.

The union that represents the employees affected by the move was formally notified Friday afternoon and was warned more cuts may come in January. Many of those who will lose their jobs help people with everything from passport applications and pension problems to processing employment insurance claims.

[...]

Service Canada said in a statement the job cuts are simply following the ebb and flow of the economy, as planned.

“When these workers were hired both the temporary workers and the unions were aware that these jobs were temporary positions. When the economy began to recover and the volume of EI claims lessened, these temporary positions were no longer required.”

Read the rest.

Great. Now start on the rest.

Fun with privacy

Julie Samuels, via the Electronic Frontier Foundation: Steve Jobs Is Watching You: Apple Seeking to Patent Spyware:

It looks like Apple, Inc., is exploring a new business opportunity: spyware and what we're calling "traitorware." While users were celebrating the new jailbreaking and unlocking exemptions, Apple was quietly preparing to apply for a patent on technology that, among other things, would allow Apple to identify and punish users who take advantage of those exemptions or otherwise tinker with their devices. This patent application does nothing short of providing a roadmap for how Apple can — and presumably will — spy on its customers and control the way its customers use Apple products. As Sony-BMG learned, spying on your customers is bad for business. And the kind of spying enabled here is especially creepy — it's not just spyware, it's "traitorware," since it is designed to allow Apple to retaliate against you if you do something Apple doesn't like.

Read the rest.

The man makes a good point

Adrian MacNair says it:

I was reading about the recent reduction in the federal deficit, and how it’s lower from the projections made earlier in the year, and it occurred to me that regardless of how much better things might be than we had thought, we’re still inexorably headed for a record level of debt in this country.

The recession may have abated for the banks, but unemployment has remained steady at around 8%. That means that people haven’t returned to earning, spending, and paying taxes, meaning lower personal and corporate tax receipts for Big Brother.
Ottawa’s revenue fell 2.5% in June, though that should pick up significantly with the July increases of tax on Ontarians and British Columbians. Yes, tax increases. Since the HST now places a lump sum figure on all purchases, formerly exempt items are expected to generate several billion dollars more from consumers.

But if you look at fiscal restraint from the Conservative Party, there isn’t much to be found. Though spending dropped off in the first quarter of 2010, that’s only because the feds have reduced provincial transfer payments. And although the government just laid off 600 workers from Services Canada, many of these employees were hired to handle the overload of Employment Insurance claims in the first place.

Read the rest.

I agree with it: Look, let's face it. This government is just as pork-loving and debt-ridden as any other. Blame the opposition all you want for 'exploiting' a minority parliament situation, but the fact remains that this is not a conservative government with a conservative leader. It has a conservative base, and conservative supporters, and conservative rhetoric. But its top-down structure and lack of back-bone have seen to it that most if not all conservative principle has been slowly leached from the party.

And I say this as a supporter, someone who wishes the Conservative Party to succeed electorally - albeit in a more principled and libertarian form.

Philly, bloggers, and taxes

Tim Carmody at Wired mag's Epicenter blog has a must-read on the 'blogging tax' currently sparking controversy in Philadelphia:

Truth: The tax isn’t new, and it isn’t for bloggers. It covers any business in the city of Philadelphia, whether you’re a multinational oil company or (in principle) a kid running a lemonade stand. In particular, it falls hard on freelancers, or anyone working for anything that doesn’t fall under a traditional payroll wage.

Read the rest. Seriously, do. H/t to Brock.

Anarchists on anarchy

An anarchist considers the Black Bloc's modus operandi:

Although the basic idea of the Black bloc has been around for years, it only really entered the public consciousness after the Seattle demonstrations. But after two years of Black Blocs at all the major summit protests, has the Black Bloc tactic reached the end of its usefulness? What role should anarchists play in the anti-globalisation protests? Are they still relevant at all?

Read the rest here. H/t to Brock.

The Great Deleveraging Lie

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.com:

One has to wonder whether the mainstream media and the clueless pundits on CNBC actually believe the crap they are peddling or whether this is a concerted effort to convince the masses that they have done enough and should start spending. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is still above 70%. This is well above the 64% level that was consistent between 1950 and 1980. Consumer spending was entirely propped up by an ever increasing level of debt. The American economy will never recover until consumer spending drops back to the 64% range that indicates a balanced economic system. For the mathematically challenged on CNBC and in the White House, this means that consumers need to reduce their spending by an additional $850 billion PER YEAR. Great news for the 1.5 million retailers in America.

Read the rest.

Thoughts on Facebook

This is a bit dated, but in a discussion about Facebook privacy on, of all things, Facebook with a fellow blogger, I had a chance to read this:

Most recently, I've been able to obtain status feeds, even for users who have very tight privacy settings, although I had to tweak my own application's privileges to do so. I don't know how far into the past these go, but they also come with likes information, and comments. This gives me a wealth of information on the strength and types of relationships people have. A person who comments a lot on another user's posts probably finds that user interesting. If I descended into keyword and text analysis, I may even be able to determine how they find that user interesting.

But by far the most interesting part of all of this have been dark users. Like dark matter, these users are not directly observable, usually because they've completely disabled API access. In fact, some of these users are completely dark unless you're a friend. They don't show up in search results. They don't show up on friends' lists. You can't send them messages. If you try to navigate to their user page (assuming you know it exists), you get redirected back to your homepage. These users have their privacy settings turned up real high, and are supposed to be hard to find.

However like dark matter, dark users are observable due to their effects on the rest of the universe. If a dark user comments on a stream entry, I can see that comment. More importantly, I can see their user-ID, and I can generate a URL to a page that will contain their name. I can then watch for their activities elsewhere. Granted, I can't directly search for their activity, but I can observe their effects on my friends. For want of a better term, I've been calling this "dark stalking".

Read the rest.

That creeps the hell out of me, I've got to say. If you use Facebook, don't put up any information that you wouldn't otherwise want to get out, and be prepared for targeted marketing, because it will happen. We've given the creators of Facebook an unheard-of amount of information, and we're taking their words for it that they're not going to sell it to the highest bidder for advertising...so far.

That's kind of scary, when you think about it.

'Moral Hazard' in Politics

The great Thomas Sowell, in JewishWorldReview:

One of the things that makes it tough to figure out how much has to be charged for insurance is that people behave differently when they are insured from the way they behave when they are not insured.

In other words, if one person out of 10,000 has his car set on fire, and it costs an average of $10,000 to restore the car to its previous condition, then it might seem as if charging one dollar to all 10,000 people would be enough to cover the cost of paying $10,000 to the one person whose car that will need to be repaired. But the joker in this deal is that people whose cars are insured may not be as cautious as other people are about what kinds of neighborhoods they park their car in.

The same principle applies to government policies. When taxpayer-subsidized government insurance policies protect people against flood damage, more people are willing to live in places where there are greater dangers of flooding. Often these are luxury beach front homes with great views of the ocean. So what if they suffer flood damage once every decade or so, if Uncle Sam is picking up the tab for restoring everything?

Read the rest.

Today's reading

Alright, here's the latest, catching up on a day or two's worth of work.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: More news from the BC Liberal accounting dept.; and Some brief reading on the Harmonized Sales Tax.

At Defend Geert Wilders: Opposition grows among Christian Democrats; Dutch Coalition Talks Threatened as Lubbers Changes Mind on Wilders Party; and The Christian Democrat chairman is a whiner, says Geert Wilders.

Principle or profit, Research in Motion?

Remember this, this, this, and this? Well there's more, via the Times Colonist: RIM urges industry forum to discuss encryption issue:

Embattled Research In Motion Ltd. is facing a difficult choice -- damage to its reputation or a significant hit to sales momentum in a critical market.

So far, RIM has chosen neither as its standoff with the government of India over access to its ultra-encrypted messenger and e-mail services races toward a deadline on Wednesday.

That is when RIM must grant Indian security authorities technology allowing them to read user messages sent from its mobile smartphones across its global network of servers. Failing that, services to one million corporate and consumer BlackBerry customers will be cut off.

In a statement, the Waterloo, Ont.-based BlackBerry maker attempted to draw public and Indian authorities' focus away from its messenger service and onto encrypted wireless data generally, something RIM says is pervasive and requires discussion through an "industry forum."

"The use of strong encryption in wireless technology is not unique to the BlackBerry platform. It is unquestionably an industry-wide matter," RIM said. "Singling out and banning one solution, such as the BlackBerry solution, would be ineffective and counterproductive."

The statement could be a way for RIM to indirectly drag competitors into the issue and perhaps buy some time, analysts say.

Read the rest.

To be honest, I'd like to see other companies get hauled into this. Let's have this discussion.

Fun with airport security

Think you're safe? Via Hillbuzz:

Slater was able to walk on the tarmac along security fencing to a supposedly guarded and sealed off employee parking lot. With absolutely no effort on his part, Slater was able to move from the tarmac to the parking lot, get into his car, and drive home. Without ever being stopped by TSA, airline employees, or anyone of any sort of authority.

Yep. That's right.

Because I can

Another mash-up. 50 Cent and the Beegees - it's better than you'd think:

I dare you not to click on this

Secret mob messages sent via TV show.

Today's reading

Alright, here's the latest.

At the Libertas Post: An Open Letter to Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Government once again fails to make up its mind; and
PlayNow.com up and running, although plagued by problems.

At Defend Geert Wilders: Leaders fear for Netherlands’ image as anti-Islam populist turns kingmaker.

Increasingly, online rants proving costly

Scott Kraft, via JewishWorldReview.com:

The Internet has allowed tens of millions of Americans to be published writers. But it also has led to a surge in lawsuits from those who say they were hurt, defamed or threatened by what they read, according to groups that track media lawsuits.

"It was probably inevitable, but we have seen a steady growth in litigation over content on the Internet," said Sandra Baron, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York.

Although bloggers may have a free-speech right to say what they want online, courts have found that they are not protected from being sued for their comments, even if they are posted anonymously.

Some postings have even led to criminal charges.

[...]

"The right to speak, whether anonymously or otherwise, is not unlimited," wrote Judge Margaret McKeown.

Um...yes. It is. Whether or not some hack judge wants to ackowledge the fact, we do have a right to speak as we see fit. The very nature of civil suits upholds this right, although it might be hard-won.

Media law experts repeat the advice that bloggers and e-mailers need to think twice before sending a message.

"The first thing people need to realize, they can be held accountable for what they say online," Baron said. "Before you speak ill of anyone online, you should think hard before pressing the 'send' button."

Here's a radical concept that be summed up with two simple little words: Tort reform.

Paul Wells makes a good point

Via Macleans.ca:

Wherever conservatism is on the rise, it’s a fiscal conservatism that has few points in common with Harper’s social policies or foreign policy. So if Harper’s project is to dismantle the degenerate socialism of the Trudeau years, step by incrementalist step, doesn’t he have his work cut out for him? Because isn’t Harper-style conservatism increasingly isolated in the world?

Because I can

The Johnny Cash + Eazy-E mash-up.

Thoughts on guns

Via Chris Selley's Full Pundit:

The Toronto Star’s editorialists are theatrically bowled over by Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair’s arguments in favour of the long-gun registry: (a) that if we register vehicles, why not guns?; and (b) that axing it would reduce “our capacity to keep our communities safe.” As you will have noticed, (a) is an argument for registering absolutely anything, and (b) both begs the question and is spectacularly rich coming from a guy whose idea of keeping our communities safe is arresting hundreds and hundreds of people for no reason. Honestly, it’s just so pathetic when the Star (or anyone else) does this. If the chiefs of police said the sky was blue, they’d send two reporters to confirm. But on the one issue where they happen to agree, our cops are tops!

Thoughts on the process

Today isn't going to be a very productive day, alas, although feel free to comment, email, hit me up on Twitter, etc.

Instead of original content, let me point you toward something actually worth reading: Publius at Gods of the Copybook Headings:

The typical blog lasts about six weeks, succumbing to the common death of boredom. My own estimate. This blog has now lasted exactly six years to the day. What do you get a blogger for his sixth anniversary? A straight jacket. No sane person would do this for so long, without being paid. Indeed most long-term bloggers are also professional writers. Being a writer is a bizarre compulsion. You gotta do it, or you explode. Or worse, bore everyone around you to death. Better to bore perfect strangers in the anonymity of cyberspace.

Nailed it. I'll be back to my usual antics tomorrow, I promise.

Today's reading

Alright, here's the latest.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Yet more fall-out from Elections BC decision on HST initiative.

At Defend Geert Wilders: Resistance to Wilders coalition grows.

Cops lob a few rounds at gun registry

Ian Robinson, via the Calgary Sun:

As the Tories stealth campaign to kill the registry, under the guise of a private member’s bill, approaches its third vote, we’re beginning to hear some interesting counter-cultural voices on the matter.

Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson — who’ll be attending the Canadian Chiefs of Police convention in Edmonton starting Sunday where, no doubt we’ll hear an impassioned save-the-registry plea — has taken a courageous position against the registry.

While the organization alleged to represent front-line cops, the Canadian Police Association, is an ardent supporter of the registry, another Alberta cop offers an alternative voice.

Edmonton cop Const. Randy Kuntz used a police magazine to survey officers across the country on the issue of the gun registry.

He got 2,631 replies and 2,410 of them said the gun registry is useless as a crime fighting tool.

Further, many of them believed it lulled cops into a false sense of security and was therefore a safety risk.

Fancy that.

And in local news - part three

Remember this and this? Well there's more. Kim Westad, via the Times Colonist: Colwood finances improving: councillor:

If the city of Colwood was a business, it would be on the verge of bankruptcy, says councillor Brian Tucknott.

And it could well have continued that way but for changes over the past two years in how the city's finances are handled, he said.

"There have been an awful lot of improvements put in place over the last couple of years and we're starting to see the benefits," Tucknott said Friday.

Tucknott and Mayor Dave Saunders give much of the credit for the improved system to chief administrative officer Chris Pease, who implemented numerous new programs after a KPMG audit and investigation found outdated practices that led to financial irregularities.

Saunders said earlier this week that the outdated practices were inherited from previous councils and administrations.

Read the rest.

Fun with copyright

By Giuseppe Valiente, via the Times Colonist: Battle rages over copyright crackdown:

Teachers and students across Canada are trying to stop what they say is an attempt by private industry to cash in on research in the digital age, the consequences of which, they say, could radically redefine how research is conducted in and outside academia.

The case will be heard this fall in front of Canada's Copyright Board and is expected to highlight the complexities of updating an analog-era copyright law to cover works for an academic community that's adapting quickly to the digital era.

Last week, the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Canadian Federation of Students filed an objection with the Copyright Board over a proposed new royalty program.

The program was proposed by Access Copyright, a private non-profit body that licenses literary works to businesses and public institutions. The vast majority of paper products used for courses at Canadian universities are represented by the company.

Critics say the proposed rules could force teachers to pay royalties for using hyperlinks to online articles in e-mails. They say the changes could force students and teachers to pay for using material that now is exempt from royalty.

Read the rest.

Simply awesome

All of Chewbacca's dialogue from Star Wars. I dare you not to read it.

H/t.

Because I can

The new: Goldigger + A Fifth of Beethoven mashup:



The old: Shotgun, by Jr. Walker and the All Stars:

Say what now?

Greedy, petty, clutching regulation at its finest. Valerie Rubinsky, via the Philadelphia City Paper:

For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she's made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it's a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.

In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

"The real kick in the pants is that I don't even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous," Bess says.

It would be one thing if Bess' website were, well, an actual business, or if the amount of money the city wanted didn't outpace her earnings six-fold. Sure, the city has its rules; and yes, cash-strapped cities can't very well ignore potential sources of income. But at the same time, there must be some room for discretion and common sense.

When Bess pressed her case to officials with the city's now-closed tax amnesty program, she says, "I was told to hire an accountant."

Read the rest. H/t.

There's a lesson here, folks: Never disclose your true income to the government.

Today's reading

Alright, here's my latest.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Anti-HST petition gets the go-ahead in court.

At Defend Geert Wilders: Geert Wilders Will Keep Speaking His Mind; and More Christian Democrats trust Wilders.

The Sea Hitler

Yep...

Binks does it again

Two special Binks posts this time:

Kathy Shaidle Is Evil..

Binks’ Special Report

Check it out!

Take your money...

...and send it here.

Turning water into wine was child's play

I know I rag on Stephen Harper all the time, but seriously, he has to be one of the few people I know of who can take fiscally conservative libertarianism and turn it into a pork project. Tasha Kheiriddin has the story:

Um, wait a minute. Isn’t the idea behind scrapping the registry that it is not only a) ineffective at curbing crime and b) an insult to the rights and freedoms of legitimate firearms owners but also c) a costly boondoggle that has siphoned over a billion tax dollars? Canadians were supposed to save money by getting rid of this program – not play musical chairs with the bureaucrats who will lose their jobs.

The federal government claims it will save money in the long run by consolidating payroll operations across the country into this new facility. But those savings are only projected to start in 2016; over the next six, the new operations will cost taxpayers $298 million.

On top of this, there is always a chance that Bill C-391 will not pass. This would leave the firearms registry – and the workforce that implements it – intact. So the federal government could then boast of two shiny facilities in Miramichi filled with local personnel.

Gee, could the motivation here be to preserve the Conservatives’ hold on the electoral district of Miramichi in the next election? With only a five-point spread in the 2008 vote, (42% CPC, 37% LIB) you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the politics in this announcement.

Sigh. Your tax dollars, at work, courtesy of the Conservative government of Canada. Not that this makes the Liberal alternative look any better – far from it, as they would keep the registry intact. But couldn’t the Tories have found something other than pork to hold this riding? Aren’t there more creative minds in Ottawa? Anyone?

Read the rest.

I know this is the part where I'm supposed to get outraged or something, but who's got the energy to keep it up all the time? Just read it and weep.

If Jennifer Lynch is for it, I'm against it

'Nuff said. Statisticians be damned - my contempt for that woman is beyond science at this point anyway.

Today's reading

OK, here we go.

At the Libertas Post blog: Crises, crises everywhere.

At Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, August 20th 2010; Wilders: I’ll decide whether I visit Ground Zero; and The end of the Wilders Round-up.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: BC government's foray into online gambling still offline; and

And in local news - part two

Remember this? Well there's more. By Kim Westad, via the Times Colonist:

West Shore RCMP have completed their investigation into historical financial irregularities at the city of Colwood and are not recommending any charges, although they did find some of the city's procedures were flawed.

Police were given numerous financial documents last year after an audit and investigation by accounting firm KPMG, initiated in 2008 by Mayor Dave Saunders.

"At this point and time and given the information we have, we are not recommending any criminal charges," Insp. Mark Fisher said yesterday. "Having said that, we did find several instances of fiscal practices and expenditure tracking procedures that were not consistent or compliant with policies one would expect to be in place."

The main problem was in tracking expenditures, Fisher said. "In some cases, they weren't tracked or followed up on accordingly."

Read the rest.

Well, just so long as they weren't criminally negligent. We wouldn't want that.

Chill. Pill.

This is the third straight story that I've ripped off from Boing Boing today, and I realize how bad that looks on me.

But I had to at least mention this:

After conferring with the TSA screeners, one of the Philadelphia officers told her he was there because her checks were numbered sequentially, which she says they were not.

"It's an indication you've embezzled these checks," she says the police officer told her. He also told her she appeared nervous. She hadn't before that moment, she says.
She protested when the officer started to walk away with the checks. "That's my money," she remembers saying. The officer's reply? "It's not your money."

Ahem: Oink. Oink.

I dare you not to click on this

Ready? OK, here it is: Marine accused of exposing self, waving shotgun, shouting white supremacy slogans, while wearing child's banana costume.

Because I can

H/t:

Lookin' good, Jack

Seriously, good for Jack Layton. He's looking healthier.

Dope logic

This story in the Province caught my eye:

A man accused of having a marijuana grow operation while appealing a conviction for trafficking will remain in jail, a B.C. Court of Appeal judge ruled Thursday.

Colin Hugh Martin was jailed in July after a Crown prosecutor argued that he had breached his bail conditions. Martin, however, believes that his detention is not justified.

In July 2006, a jury found Martin guilty of conspiring to import and traffic marijuana, four counts of possessing property which was the proceeds of crime and two counts of money laundering.

Now, say what you will about Colin Hugh Martin, but here's what bothers me about this story: All of the charges against Martin stem directly from the fact that marijuana is illegal.

Bear with me. If marijuana were legal, Martin wouldn't have been brought up on charges of conspiring to import and traffic. That's obvious enough. But 'possessing property which was the proceeds of crime' - four counts of it no less -wouldn't exist either, and the two counts of money laundering was no doubt because of the fact that Martin couldn't account for his marijuana-related proceeds any other way.

I'm just sayin'. It seems like in this case prohibition has resulted in more crime, not less.

The peasants revolt

Via the Straight:

What do Postmedia newsroom employees do when there's a nationwide server crash?

In Vancouver, it appears that they tweet the details to anyone with a Twitter account.

Around 4 p.m., Vancouver Sun Web editor Chris Parry blasted out the following message: "Let's centralize all publishing systems on 1 server, they said. What if there's a crash, we said. Never happen, they said."

Vancouver Sun reporter Andrea Woo then tweeted: "Nationwide server crash threatening publication of all our papers tomorrow. Good time for me to be on the other side of the planet, I'm told"

That prompted Province reporter Tamara Baluja to tweet in response: "What I want to know is how many readers would have noticed or cared if we didn't put out papers."

Just after 5 p.m. Baluja wrote that there was relief in the newsroom because the servers had come back on-line.

Woo stated: "Well that was anti-climactic"

Her colleague Derrick Penner disagreed, however, with the following tweet: "No, not anti-climatic. People still running around here dramatically."

Read it here.

I think that, if anything, Twitter's role in the evolution of journalism has been to make people take the business less seriously.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

In which our wallets let out a thousand tiny screams of agony

Ouch:

OTTAWA — It cost taxpayers as much as $25,000 in travel alone to bring MPs back to Ottawa this month for two House of Commons committee meetings that heard no witnesses and reached no decisions.

One of those committees will reconvene Friday, again with no witnesses scheduled.

That's just painful.

This time I wish Paul Krugman actually was right

By Crawford Killian, via The Hook:

Canadians are even deeper in debt than Paul Krugman thinks they are, says the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In an article on the CCPA website, Armine Yalnizyan cited Paul Krugman, Nobel Prizewinning US economist and blogger, who recently spoke to the Canadian Bar Association.

[...]

Interest rates are so low that it's easy to borrow, Yalnizyan said, but it's also getting harder to save because incomes are stagnant while costs of housing education and transportation all keep going up.

Well, erm...that's rather depressing isn't it?

Because I can

Nigel Farage:



H/t to Vlad Tepes.

The Olympics fall-out continues

By Charlie Smith, via the Georgia Straight:

The developer of the Olympic Village has failed in its bid to avoid paying a provincial property-transfer tax on buildings it constructed on city-owned land.

In an August 16 ruling, B.C. Supreme Court justice Deborah Kloegman dismissed an application by Millennium Southeast False Creek Properties Ltd. to only pay the transfer tax on the land itself. “To accede to this submission of Millennium is to ignore the preponderance of case authority in British Columbia that would say otherwise,” Kloegman wrote in her decision.

Today's reading

Here's my latest for the Libertas Post: Crises and Conspiracies – Notes from The West Coast.

And in local news

Jesse Ferreras in the Vancouver Sun: Squamish-Lillooet warned about landslide risk two years ago:

METRO VANCOUVER - Lawmakers with the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District received a scientific report two years ago warning that a major landslide was coming and urging the installation of an emergency early warning system for area residents.

The regional district board, which governs areas adjacent to the Village of Pemberton’s boundaries, discussed the report at a confidential meeting in March 2008, but later rejected a proposal to submit it to peer review or study the feasibility of an early warning system. The board opted instead to publish an annual public notice about the slide hazard at Mount Meager.

Fail.

Meanwhile, Kim Westad reports in the Times Colonist: Audit found Colwood in disarray, mayor says:

The municipality of Colwood has engaged in a slew of irregular financial practices, ranging from allowing a developer to run a bill of $740,000 to letting the $2-million reserve fund run dry, advancing some councillors too much pay and recording IOUs via sticky notes on a cash register.

Holy balls. That goes beyond fail.

Let's face it

The Toronto Star kind of sucks.

Liberty vs. Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy wins:

UPDATE: You can help us! If you’re from Clarington, please call our local councillors and mayor. If you know someone from Clarington, please encourage them to call. The main switchboard number is: 905-623-3379. Please be polite and friendly!

August 17: Home owners burnt by BBQ seminar

Orono, ON: Due to an anonymous zoning complaint filed with the local municipality, husband and wife bed-and-breakfast proprietors Marta & Lech Jaworski may be forced to pay as much as $50,000 in fines for permitting their son, Peter, to use his family’s property to host the Liberty Summer Seminar, an annual seminar in support of liberty.

“Our family escaped Poland for fear of reprisals in 1984 after my mom and dad handed out pro-democracy and pro-freedom literature from under my baby carriage,” said Peter Jaworski. “It’s ironic and upsetting that they may now be facing charges in Canada for allowing me to host an event in support of those very same principles.”

The Liberty Summer Seminar is a non-profit event for like-minded students and individuals hosted by the Institute for Liberal Studies, a registered charity in Canada.

The LSS has drawn hundreds of students and young people, prominent academics, like emeritus professor of philosophy Jan Narveson who was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, journalists like CBC’s Kady O’Malley and U.S.-based Reason Magazine senior editor Michael C. Moynihan, as well as politicians like M.P. Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, M.P.P. Randy Hillier, and M.P. Scott Reid, amongst many others.

Over the weekend of July 25, the LSS celebrated its tenth anniversary with a two-day event on the Orono property. On Sunday afternoon, as the event was wrapping up, a municipal law enforcement official arrived without notice in the car parking area. He quizzed a passing LSS participant about the event, asking him what had been served for lunch, as well as the cost of the registration fee, and the number of port-a-potties available. After a few minutes, the official left without attempting to speak to the Jaworski family.

On August 12th, Marta and Lech Jaworski were each served with a summons to appear in court on the grounds that they had “allowed the use of land in an agricultural zone for a use other than a permitted residential use; namely for a commercial conference centre,” which is contrary to Clarington by-laws.* A first offence carries a maximum penalty of $25,000 upon conviction.

“The municipality tells me that they work on a complaint basis,” said Peter Jaworski, “although I don’t believe any of our immediate neighbours complained, since we’ve been doing this for nine years without a single complaint or problem, and being very public about it.”

“I wrote about the Seminar in the Orono Weekly Times back when I was a weekly columnist with the newspaper, and it’s been mentioned in prominent media outlets like the CBC, Maclean’s, the Sun chain of newspapers, and the Western Standard,” continued Peter Jaworski.

The charges come at a time when Marta and Lech Jaworski are struggling financially. Lifelong entrepreneurs, in 1989 the couple started Ma-Le Enterprises — which takes the first two initials of their first names — a small business that sells children’s books, cookbooks, and other items directly to employees of various companies. After the global recession devastated their sales income, they decided to turn the family farm into a bed and breakfast to make ends meet. Both Marta and Lech continue to work full-time, operating the bed and breakfast during their weekends.

“If we’re convicted of letting our son host an educational seminar and barbecue with his friends, these charges could bankrupt us,” said Lech Jaworski. “It’s hard to have peace-of-mind when you’re looking at something like this.”

“I will always let my son use our property for what he believes in, and for the freedom we came to Canada to find,” said Marta Jaworski. “If he wants to host a seminar to support more liberty in Canada, we’re not just happy, but proud to let him do that. That’s what you do as parents.”

The Jaworskis are expected to appear before the Ontario Court of Justice at 605 Rossland Road East in Whitby, Ontario on the 28th of September at 2 p.m in courtroom #103. They are working on setting up a blog (www.willowpondbb.wordpress.com) to draw attention to their plight, and have put together a legal defence fund to help pay for their legal fees.

More from Jay Currie.

No blogging today

I'm taking the day off, I'm afraid. But I swear - I'll be back tomorrow.

Seriously, you can trust me.

Update: If I'm really ambitious, I might be on Twitter today, though. So you can harass me there if you'd like.

Because I can

I don't think I've posted this before - the track In the House, in the Heartbeat by John Murphy, from the 28 Days Later soundtrack:

Today's reading

Here's my latest at the Victoria Politics Examiner: BC Liberals will act in their own self-interest. Give it a read, eh?

Oh dear

The Toronto Star and mass hysteria.

Binks has done it again

Steynian 420th. Check it out.

Because I can

The Desert Sessions: Girl Boy Tom, parts one and two:

Gary Kurtz v. George Lucas

Read all about it.

Today's reading

Here's my latest.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: More fall-out from Elections BC decision on HST initiative.

At Defend Geert Wilders: De Hoop Scheffer advises Wilders not to speak.

Check it out!

Mass Delusion - American Style

By Jim Quinn, via TheBurningPlatform.com:

The American public thinks they are rugged individualists, who come to conclusions based upon sound reason and a rational thought process. The truth is that the vast majority of Americans act like a herd of cattle or a horde of lemmings. Throughout history there have been many instances of mass delusion. They include the South Sea Company bubble, Mississippi Company bubble, Dutch Tulip bubble, and Salem witch trials. It appears that mass delusion has replaced baseball as the national past-time in America.

Read the rest.

Why yes, officer

Did you have any involvement in this murder? Police FAIL.

Prostitutes, prostitutes everywhere

Peter McKnight in the Sun explains how Canada's laws dealing with prostitution have actually led to an increase in the amount of sex workers that are killed every year:

It's well known that street prostitutes are in much greater danger than those who work in massage parlours or escort agencies, which means that by forcing prostitutes into the streets, the enforcement of the bawdy house laws might have directly contributed to their deaths.

In any case, when the communicating law was promulgated in 1985, things ran out of control. Four B.C. prostitutes were murdered in 1985, followed by 49 more between 1986 and 1995, which means prostitute murders rose to five a year from one. Nor do these numbers include all of the Downtown Eastside's missing women.

There have now been more than 100 prostitute murders, almost all of them street workers. And while this isn't proof that the communicating law is to blame, there is reason to believe that it created an environment that made the murders possible.

Since the law made it easier for police to arrest both prostitutes and their customers, prostitution was effectively displaced from residential or commercial neighbourhoods to barren, industrial areas where sex workers could not seek help if they were assaulted.

Furthermore, prostitutes had to divest themselves of the minimal self-protections they previously enjoyed. Street workers could no longer look out for each other, since by working in groups they could draw the attention of police and the public. They typically had little time to assess whether a new client was trustworthy before getting into his car.

The law also created an adversarial relationship with the police and other institutions that might have been able to help sex workers. Prostitutes ceased reporting bad dates -street slang for being assaulted on the job -- to police, for fear that they might be arrested. If a prostitute did file a report, she was often seen as untrustworthy -- recall the Crown's decision not to proceed with a 1997 case against Robert "Willie" Pickton because they feared the complainant would not make a credible witness. All of this meant, of course, that men who preyed on prostitutes could do so with impunity.

Read the rest.

I know I'm a libertarian, so my defence of all things morally corrupt is a given already. But this isn't really about morals - it's about being smart. This is black market economics 101, after all: Force a business underground and it gets a lot more dangerous.

Thoughts on drugs

H/t Boing Boing:

Still beats the iPhone, part two

Remember this, this, and this? Well there's this, via the Colonist:

Citing anonymous sources, the Reuters News Agency reported yesterday that RIM had agreed to give India access to encrypted corporate e-mails and messaging services. India had threatened to shut down those services if RIM didn't comply.

The move comes on the heels of another deal reported earlier this week between RIM and Saudi Arabia that would see the company give up codes for its BlackBerry Messenger users.

"I suspect that you will start to see a string of countries announcing that they have reached a deal for some sort of access to BlackBerry data," said Joe Compeau, an information systems expert at the University of Western Ontario.

The United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and Algeria have also approached RIM about getting keys to the company's security kingdom.

In a way, RIM has become a victim of its own security prowess, experts say.

The company's robust end-to-end encryption means that as soon as a message is sent it's scrambled into a bunch of gobbledygook until it is received.

Read the rest.

Meanwhile, George Jonas: Your data or your freedom.

Today's reading

Here's my latest.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Why we should be careful with Fight HST.

At Defend Geert Wilders: The Wilders Round-Up, August 14th 2010.

Information fail

Via Sean Holman at Public Eye Online:

The assessment states Hells Angels had, in some cases, succeeded in infiltrating the province's "legitimate gaming operations." It also states known gang members often check into casinos and that some loan sharks are "believed to be associated to Asian based criminal organizations."

But when we first asked for that analysis on November 16, 2009, the RCMP stated it was "unable to locate any information relating to your request."

Public Eye resubmitted it on April 10, 2010 - attaching an internal record showing the force's integrated illegal gaming enforcement team, in fact, had prepared such an assessment.

Four months later, we received the document. Many sections were blanked out for law enforcement reasons - including one dealing with money laundering.

However, we weren't the only ones on the hunt for that assessment.

The Vancouver Sun's Chad Skelton had also filed a request for it. But when he got his copy this week, the RCMP accidentally gave him an uncensored version of that section.

Read the rest.

Yes, that's right. The people who are supposed to be keeping us safe can't even handle an information request. Not sure whether to laugh or cry at that one.

Chris Selley FTW

In the Post: Civil liberties vs. knee-jerk loyalties:

In all these cases, the real villains are governments that believe, with ample justification, that they can do whatever they want to whomever they want, whenever they want. Governments don’t care what party you voted for, or what you think about the war in Afghanistan, or whether your bookshelf’s stuffed with Noam Chomsky or Ayn Rand. If they think it’s in their best interests to steamroll you, they will. Ideological partisanship dilutes by half the democratic force of the revulsion we feel — or should feel — when they do. It enables the very thing we all claim to detest when it happens to people we like. The answer lies in sticking up for people we don’t like too.

Good for them

Woodwynn Farms is up and running:

We sure learned a lot about farming our property. We've put in a kilometre of deer fence and found out how the irrigation works," he said. "And the folks who have been working on the project say they have found it very relaxing and therapeutic."

Today, members of the public can take their first close-up look at progress on the farm at Woodwynn's open house. Face-painting, music and family activities are planned and visitors will be able to look at the sunflower message from the air as a rental company has donated the use of a boom bucket, LeBlanc said.

Two formerly homeless residents are now living and working on the farm and another two are expected to arrive this month.

The aim is to eventually have 96 people apprenticing on the farm for three-year programs that aim to break the cycle of addiction and homelessness with the help of farm work, training, counselling and support.

I seriously wish them all the best.

Today's reading

There's not a lot today, but you should check it out anyway.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Fight HST clears another hurdle, sets sights even higher.

Still beats the iPhone

Remember this and this? Well now there's this:

RIM's announcement is in response to Thursday's threat by the government of India that it will "take steps to block" BlackBerry Enterprise Service and BlackBerry Messenger Service starting Aug. 31 if the two aren't "made accessible to law enforcement."

[...]

Any capability it provides to carriers will be limited by four principles, RIM says.

First, a carrier must observe the strict context of lawful access and national security requirements by the country's judiciary and rules of law.

Second, the carrier's demands must be what BlackBerry calls "technology and vendor neutral," which means RIM can't be asked to do anything more than any competitor or similar tech company.

Third, there will be no changes to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. RIM maintains it does not have the ability to provide a customer's encryption key.

Lastly, RIM says it maintains a "consistent global standard for lawful access requirements that does not include special deals for specific purposes."

However, the Waterloo, Ont.-based company is not providing details about any of the negotiations it has had with foreign governments.

That's just dumb

David Akin in the Toronto Sun:

The latest evidence Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives do dumb things comes from Parliament’s budget watchdog, and it’s about how Ottawa is going about spending $4 billion on one of its infrastructure programs.

Watchdog Kevin Page, the parliamentary budget officer, looked at this program and said, first, the government itself doesn’t seem to have enough information to be able to assess how it’s working — that’s dumb — and, second, because of an arbitrary deadline Ottawa has set, as much as $500 million worth of projects may not get done or, if they do, someone other than the federal government will have to pay for them. That’s dumber.

That “someone else,” by the way, is likely to be municipal ratepayers who could have to cover off a big chunk of the fed’s recession-fighting stimulus program.

“When chosen carefully, infrastructure projects can provide a much-needed, short-term stimulus to our economy,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said when he announced the plans in early 2009.

That’s true. But the projects for the $4-billion infrastructure stimulus project were not chosen carefully. They were chosen mostly if a municipality thought it could get it done by the arbitrary federally imposed deadline of March 31, 2011.

If a municipality cannot finish by then, the federal funding dries up and the local municipality will be on the hook for the whole cost.

Read the rest.

Go Michael Schmidt, go

Remember this guy? Well he's running for an Ontario PC nomination. I say go for it, Michael:

I am a Progressive Conservative in the truest sense of the word; conserving nature, conserving values, conserving basic rights, conserving the art of dialogue and debate.

I am progressive because I have a vision for the future, a vision how we can return to basic core values, a vision how we can de-regulate, a vision how to return more responsibility and freedom to the individual.

Hells yes.

What's a little bankruptcy between friends?

Via Bloomberg: U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It: Laurence Kotlikoff:

Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.

What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess. But this is the good news. It means they can each be redesigned to achieve their legitimate purposes at much lower cost and, in the process, revitalize the economy.

Last month, the International Monetary Fund released its annual review of U.S. economic policy. Its summary contained these bland words about U.S. fiscal policy: “Directors welcomed the authorities’ commitment to fiscal stabilization, but noted that a larger than budgeted adjustment would be required to stabilize debt-to-GDP.”
But delve deeper, and you will find that the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Paper says: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”

The fiscal gap is the value today (the present value) of the difference between projected spending (including servicing official debt) and projected revenue in all future years.

Double Our Taxes

To put 14 percent of gross domestic product in perspective, current federal revenue totals 14.9 percent of GDP. So the IMF is saying that closing the U.S. fiscal gap, from the revenue side, requires, roughly speaking, an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act.

Read the rest. H/t Paul.

Simply awesome

The X-Wing mailbox:

Today's reading

Here's my latest. Ready?

At The Propagandist: Protect My Human Rights. Get Rid Of The Tribunals.

At the Victoria Politics Examiner: Elections BC, Fight HST, in uneasy relationship as court battle ensues.

At Defend Geert Wilders: Geert Wilders to protest NYC Victory-Mosque; and The Wilders Round-Up, August 12th 2010.

At the Libertas Post blog: Anger and elections.

Anger and elections

Via Jane Taber:

Regardless of the narrow gap, Mr. Wright does not believe there will be an election any time soon because no one can win a majority government at this time. “The reality is that if everybody knows that all you’re going to get is a minority you can take your time.”

The Bloc is just too strong in Quebec to free up seats necessary for either the Conservatives or Liberals to form a majority government, Mr. Wright added.

But Mr. Graves has a different take: “Wow! To be blunt, I was concerned about our poll, as it came in the summer, and it was a pretty abrupt shift,” he told The Globe on Tuesday morning.

“The Ipsos poll suggests that our poll did catch a major shift in voter sentiments. What is remarkable about this shift is that it comes in the midst of the summer, a period when the public are typically blissfully unconcerned with politics. This might suggest that the negative effects of the census decision on the government may be muted to this point.”

If this is true, he said, the chances of a fall election “have now shifted to more likely than not.”

And that is because the opposition could sense that this “new shift for the PM” could represent a “critical mass of frustration within the electorate and in particular a growing fatigue amongst the more educated portion.”

Mr. Graves added that the government now has a choice: continue to be “battered” by its unpopular decision on the census or “flip flop on the basis of poor polls.”

Read the rest. H/t to Brock.

I don't like to indulge in election speculation, particularly since just about everybody except Andrew Coyne seems to be wrong about such things these days. I've heard predictions for this fall or the next - and both options seem about equally valid.

But above and beyond a mere election, I think this 'critical mass of frustration' presents a very interesting potential change in Canadian politics. It's a cliche that Canadians are rather laid-back and apathetic as a nation - and a rather untrue cliche to boot - but the fact is that we do have a political process that is growing increasingly inept at doing much more than entrenching certain interests.

I suppose it was always this way, really, and probably always will be, but perhaps people are starting to grow impatient with the lackluster pace. Perhaps they're finally starting to demand a little more from their politicians.

I'd like to think so, at any rate.

And now for something completely different

An unsigned editorial from the Victoria Times Colonist comes down hard on BC's municipal officials:

The local government trough grows wider by the day. The mayor and councillors of Port Coquitlam are the latest in a long line of municipal officials to grant themselves whopping pay raises.

The mayor's remuneration has been hiked to $85,418, a 27-per-cent increase. Councillors collected a 42-per-cent lift. They now make $31,654.

And shameless as these increases are, they're modest compared to what happened last year in Victoria. Once the municipal election of 2008 was safely out of the way, our new council voted itself an 82-per-cent pay hike. Councillors now make $40,000. The mayor's salary leapt to $100,000 from $57,000, a 76-per-cent increase.

Still, these figures pale in comparison to some municipal stipends. The mayor of Burnaby gets $115,000, the mayor of Coquitlam makes $118,000 and the mayor of Vancouver takes home $140,000.

True, there are even more scandalous arrangements to consider. The elected chief of Alberta's Enoch Cree Nation, membership population just 1,628, was pulling down $250,000, tax-free, before public pressure forced him to take a pay cut. He now gets $180,000.

And the chief and councillors of the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, membership population 7,200, each took home pay and expenses of more than $200,000 in 2008-09.

And even that is well below the North American peak. The city manager of Bell, Calif., population 38,000, was earning $800,000 a year until voters found out and called for his head.

He resigned two weeks ago along with the chief of police (salary $457,000) and the assistant city manager (salary $376,000). Most of the town's residents are poor immigrant workers.

But let's stay with Port Coquitlam. While the new salary plateau is far from a record, the mayor's explanation speaks volumes.

Read the rest.

I tend to stay away from municipal politics, mainly because it's a world all its own. But let's just say this about that: As the Colonist rightly points out, the model of municipal service seems to be moving away from the mindset of voluntary, service-based representation to a mindset of, well 'It's just a job like any other.'

Unfortunately it isn't. Politicians on any level shouldn't get in the habit of feeling entitled to large salaries and reams of benefits. Because in the end, they're only where they are by the grace of their constituents.

Lars Hedegaard, freedom of speech, and Islam

Via Vlad Tepes:

Note: Danish URLs can be viewed in English using Google translate.

On August 4, 2010, the Public Prosecutor for Copenhagen charged International Free Press Society (IFPS) president Lars Hedegaard with racism. The IFPS describes itself as an organization “exclusively devoted to defending the right of free expression.”

The basis for Hedegaard’s prosecution was an interview from December 2009 in which he made controversial statements about Islam. These assertions included critiques of what Hedegaard saw as Islam’s permissiveness regarding child abuse and bearing false witness, as well as Islam’s general intolerance concerning apostacism and critical speech. Snaphanen, a Danish blog, published the original interview, and Hedegaard has since clarified some of his remarks.

Hedegaard’s statements earned him a hate speech charge under Danish law. While Denmark’s constitution ostensibly protects freedom of expression and forbids censorship (see Section 77), the Criminal code provides that “expressing and spreading racial hatred” is a criminal offense punishable with up to two years imprisonment. (Article 266b)

Indeed, notwithstanding Section 77, article 266b has already been deployed against defendants who, like Hedegaard, dare to criticize Islam. On June 16, 2010, the Danish parliament voted to strip a lawmaker of immunity so that he could face charges over anti-Muslim comments. The politician, Jesper Langballe, is a veteran member of the Danish People’s Party (PPD) and a crucial ally of the center-right government. In January 2010, he penned a newspaper column discussing the status of women in Islam and the “Islamisation of Europe.” Included was the statement that “Muslims kill their daughters over crimes of honour and turn a blind eye while they are raped by their uncles.” He is currently awaiting trial for violating Article 266b—the same hate speech statute that will likely be applied to Hedegaard.

The decision to charge Hedegaard elicited a number of immediate reactions—two of which merit mention. First, Danish writer and “integration consultant” Mohammad Rafiq enthusiastically endorsed the prosecution calling it a “victory for integration.” This is no surprise. Rafiq has previously attempted to silence Hedegaard by suing him for libel. Ironically, by applauding the de-facto silencing of an activist, Rafik reinforces Hedegaard’s point that Islam seeks to silence its critics.

By contrast, a day after Hedegaard was charged, Justice Minister Lars Barfoed announced that Denmark’s hate speech and blasphemy laws should be reexamined. The Copenhagen Post explains that Barfoed is “preparing the ground for changes to laws criminalising racist and blasphemous speech on concerns they could be misused as political instruments to restrict free speech.”

Barfoed is right to be concerned. If his effort is successful, it will be not only a victory for free speech in Denmark, but a bold example for the rest of Europe.

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Read it here.

I don't really have to say it, do I? Freedom of speech good, censorship bad, etc. etc. etc. Lars Hedegaard deserves support in this unnecessary legal battle, and I wish him all the best as he fights the good fight for freedom of speech, as I have little doubt he will do.

Cool

Joe Tripician, scifi biographer:

"Balkanized at Sunrise" is the true story of how Joe navigated between toadying government aides, lying politicians, harassed dissident journalists, and Croatian and Bosnian women looking for a quick visa. It's a fascinating memoir of political, moral, and sexual proportions.

So VANOC actually did something worthwhile? No no, that can't be.

Via the Vancouver Sun:

Huge building modules from the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Village in Whistler will be hoisted into place Tuesday afternoon to form a Saanich apartment complex for the homeless.

Eighteen of the 22-tonne housing modules which were used for athlete accommodation during the Olympic Games, will be moved by crane onto the foundation of the Olympic Vista Apartments at the site of the former Mount View High School. The modules have been on the property for the past few months while foundation work was taking place.

Funding for the reconfiguration of the modules into apartments for the homeless and those deemed to be at risk for homelessness has come from the provincial government and the Games’ Vancouver Organizing Committee (Vanoc).

Read the rest.

Good for them, I say. Pity it took VANOC this long to find a heart - maybe running roughshod over a province wears on a person's conscience after a while.

Meanwhile, south of the border

The American Civil Liberties Union warns the Obama administration not to repeat the mistakes of the previous administration:

The Obama administration should work with Congress to restore the rule of law, and discourage any legislation that would institutionalize policies that were widely regarded as unlawful under President Bush. Together, Congress and the White House should make sure that abuses of power like the Patriot Act are dismantled, not extended, and that policies like indefinite detention are never signed into law," said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "It is not too late for President Obama to build a legacy of justice and fairness."

The report concludes that, in addition to the initial executive orders, the administration has taken other positive steps and made genuine progress in some areas such as improvements to the government's handling of Freedom of Information Act requests, the release of key documents related to the U.S. torture program and an executive order disavowing torture. It also addresses more troubling practices such as the use of the "state secrets" doctrine to block lawsuits brought by torture survivors, the revival of the discredited military commissions to prosecute some Guantánamo detainees, the assertion of broad surveillance powers and the authorization of a "targeted killing" program to kill terrorism suspects, including American citizens, wherever they are located, without due process.

Read the rest.

I'd make a joke about hope and change if I wasn't so lazy.