Is walking worse for greenhouse gases than driving?

It appears it could be depending on how you get your calories.

These posts at Freakonomics, pointing to a long post calculating the impact of walking versus driving goes some way to turning conventional wisdom on its head. Here's the story: walking requires energy. The fuel for this energy is food. The amount of food required to replenish the calories burnt walking can require more energy and produce more externalities than driving.

I love economics because of its ability to confound conventional wisdom. And no where, perhaps, does conventional wisdom need more confounding than in confronting the very real challenges of climate change.

On the Line

David Myles' new album, On the Line, is to be released in three short weeks. I am sure it's going to be a killer. You can check out a few tracks in advance here.

Bastarache retires

Wayne MacKay is the sensible choice. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Rent-seeking bloodsuckers

As some of my friends and occassional dinner companions have found out, I don't have the world's most positive view of farmers. Generally, it's a bit of a show, but I do think the evidence is more or less clear that consumers -- especially the poor -- are not well-served by supply management and by the readiness of our politicians to give to farmers subsidies which they do not give to other industries. So, the argument is a bit of put-on because I like being contrarian, and a bit true, because I think the facts are with me. All of that aside, you can be sure I will pull out this article the next time the debate comes up.

It takes no foresight to guess that tobacco demand is going to continue to decline. And it takes no small amount of gumption to complain that "high taxation and anti-smoking policies have had the effect of expropriating their livelihood without compensation." No, all it takes is some incredible romantic sense that one is entitled to compensation because they work in a field as opposed to an office. Never has the term rent-seeking bloodsuckers come so easily to mind.

The Prime Minister, Auschwitz, and Allan Woods Absurd Article

This is an absurd article. Woods never comes out and says it, but he somehow thinks it's wrong that the Prime Minister didn't say anything to reporters after visiting Auschwitz. Instead of giving a speech afterwards, Harper signed a rather eloquent message in a guestbook. As Woods, our intrepid scribe puts it:

That statement was the only clue Canadians have as to what was in Harper's mind as he bore witness to the depravity of Auschwitz, where upward of one million Jews were exterminated, along with more than 100,000 Poles, Gypsies and homosexuals.


What, pray tell, do you think he was thinking? I am guessing, like any human being, that he was overwhelmed by what he saw (indeed, other reports capture his emotional struggle) and wasn't too keen on trying to discuss awful feelings in front of other people. Particularly not someone like Woods. Given the amount of space he's wasted writing on what the Prime Minister didn't say, can you imagine the knots he'd tie if he had said anything?

Woods should take a second to think about whether he is professionally obliged to be critical at every possible opportunity. And then he should do us the favour of not writing about it. No one, I can assure him, will write an article about his silence.

A question/annoyance

Can someone explain to me how the interests of science are served by journals asking all authors to conform to some meaningless and arbitrary document standard for the purposes of review? Why, pray tell, must articles be submitted in 12-point Times New Roman? And why must they be ragged right? And why, for the love of all good and holy, must they be submitted in Word? What about those of us who actually care about offending the eyes of others, have seen the light, and have moved to Latex?

In short, why are authors made to conform to silly and arbitrary standards prior to acceptance and publication, especially when every author already has sufficient incentives to present their work in a clear and professional manner. Sheesh.

UPDATE: As Varnson notes in the comments, it is almost certain that no journal actually uses Word when it comes to setting the journal. Rather, they probably use a typesetting program like latex. You know, the type you're not allowed to submit in in the first place. Sheesh.

Tom Lukiski on Tape

Tom Lukiski is in a world of trouble. The Tory MP was videotaped, seventeen years ago, making extremely disparaging remarks about homosexuals. These comments resurfaced when the NDP opposition in Saskatchewan found the tape in their new opposition offices.

The remarks are vulgar, ignorant, and delivered in a manner which suggests that they did not just come to the top of his head spontaneously and fully-formed. No, he has the swagger of someone who said similar things, several times, probably always to great effect.

Lukiski has issued an apology which includes the claim "They do not reflect the type of person I am. I do not believe in those types of comments."

Whether or not Lukiski is the type of person who still believes this things is precisely the point, I think. Not whether he used to believe those things. I want to phrase this as precisely as possible: the average man, certainly of Lukiski's vintage, viewed homosexuality and homosexuals much differently than most men today do. Much progress has been made towards greater and deserved tolerance in the last 17 years. In fact, I think we can say a near sea-change of opinion has occurred since broad public discussion over same-sex marriage began in earnest in the last four or five years.

I think this is much to the credit of people of a certain age who grew up with views which were ignorant and wrongheaded but widely-held and believed. If we want to make progress towards greater toleration, then we have to be willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and not to play politics with past intolerance.

So, the important question is this: Does Mr Lukiski still hold these views? And, if not, when did he change them? What was the moment at which he cast them aside as useless, incorrect, and uncivil. Maybe he can't define an exact moment, but he could at least try to explain his progression. Provided he does, the matter should be put aside.

I am open to opinions on this, having given my own.

Why Bob Rae's Entry into Parliament Secures Dion's Leadership

There's been some to and froing here and there about whether Rae's entry into Parliament makes Dion's (apparent) leadership woes better or worse. I think the case is pretty clear that things have become better for Dion.

Let's assume five things:

i) Bob Rae would like to be leader as soon as possible.
ii) Michael Ignatieff would like to be leader as soon as possible.
iii) If Dion loses the next election he will be forced out by multiple players.
iv) If Dion is to be forced out before the next election, it will require a much stronger effort then that mounted by one party vice-president, one student council type, and one obscure MP.
v) Such an effort would clearly point to an actively organizing candidate, on the scale of Mulroney contra Clark in 1983, Martin contra Chretien post 2000, or Chretien contra Turner in 1986. A candidate would pay a cost for this.

If you take these as reaonable assumptions, then I think you can back out logically why Dion is now more secure. First, suppose that Ignatieff really puts a push on Dion (which he has not been doing thus far, by my lights). He could perhaps force Dion out, but he too would pay a price for the coup, and this would likely facilitate Rae's rise. Similarly, Rae is now closer to the leadership than he's ever been. But were he to force out Dion, then he would only enable Ignatieff's rise, as he would carry the blame.

Both Rae and Ignatieff, then, would rather wait until after an election (presuming Dion loses) and try their odds in another head-to-head. To make any other move would be to ensure the other's rise.

There is something to this Team of Rivals stuff.

Elections in Zimbabwe

If the logic of political survival sometimes beats one about the head, it also sometimes allows events like this. Zimbabwe is on the cusp of closing a chapter in its history, unquestionably a dark one. If you're inclined, say a prayer that corruption will not win out. If you're not inclined, then just hope. And get ready to share in the joy of Zimbabweans who may be soon rid of Mugabe, that great lost hope.

Choose a Day to Spread the Net

Over at Cairo to the Cape we are selling days of our trip. The idea is simple. If you donate $150 to Spread the Net then we'll designate one day of our trip to you. After the trip is done we'll write up a report of the day for you, include some pictures, and perhaps our maps from that day, or some other momento.

For what it's worth, the day when we ride the pictured road is still available. It's in Northern Kenya. It's going to be so great!

Leo the Lion

One can only imagine this occurred immediately after the cat realized how redundant is its name.

Byelections and Turnout

A point to begin with: we basically know very little about byelections in Canada. If you'd like to see how confused is our common wisdom about what byelections tell us you should read this post at Megapundit. We do not know definitively whether the government is systematically punished in byelections. We don't know when turnout in byelections will be higher or lower than average. And we don't know if byelection winners do better or worse than equivalent candidates in the subsequent elections. It is one of many empirical blind spots in Canadian politics. Fred Bastien and I are trying to shed some light on it in a paper in progress, but I still have no idea about the answer to these questions.

All of that said, I am rather confident that new voter ID laws have absolutely nothing to do with the apparently no turnout in Monday's four federal byelections. First, it is completely unlikely that large numbers of voters knew about these new restrictions and thus abstained from voting. Knowledge sufficient to understand the restrictions would also be sufficient to understand what forms of ID could be used in their place. So it's difficult to believe that new restrictions were anything but a post hoc explanation for some people who stayed home. Second, while there are some stories of people being turned away at the polls, there was clearly not enough of this to drive the decline. If, say, 10% of voters in a riding where refused the right to vote you can be sure you'd have news stories with more definitive sentences than "He's (Charlie Angus) also heard of at least one student being turned away in Vancouver Quadra because of the residency identification rules."

Turnout was quite low in Saskatchewan. In fact, in the 41 byelections since 1990, only five had lower turnout. Then again, turnout in the same riding was six points below the national average in 2006, despite the race being extremely close. The likely culprit of this low turnout is rather obvious, I think: first, byelections never have high turnout because of a lack of attention and interest. Second, turnout is declining everywhere, so we should expect to see it declining in byelections as well. Combined, we should expect lower turnout in byelections going forward.

The bottom line: we certainly don't know that low turnout was the result of new voter identification rules. Making hay with Elections Canada over it is probably a little off the mark.

Thank you for smoking....

I just watched Thank You For Smoking (dissertation be damned) and then read this article on Barrack Obama's dirty habit. It's rather funny. And the movie is just great.

Thank you for smoking....

I just watched Thank You For Smoking (dissertation be damned) and then read this article on Barrack Obama's dirty habit. It's rather funny. And the movie is just great.

Rename Metro Lionel-Groulx Metro Oscar-Peterson

Agreed. And while we're at it perhaps we could rename my building at the UdeM which is also named after the anti-semite priest himself.

More Voter Turnout

There's a short CBC piece on my radio bit here, as well as audio here (for those of you wishing to hear the definition of stammering). I'll post the Herald editorial when it comes across the wire.

UPDATE: Here is the Herald piece. The piece references an experiment I conducted with Henry Milner and Bruce Hicks published first as a working paper by the IRPP and then as a research note in the CJPS.

Voter Turnout and the Alberta Election

I am doing a few short interviews on the CBC morning shows in Calgary and Edmonton tomorrow. The topic, as I understand it, is the record low turnout in the Alberta election last Monday. And, if I have my way, about why this really doesn't matter all that much for the legitimacy of the government. Tune in if you get the chance.

After the long drive – Olympic Symphonium at Casa de Popolo

The boys from The Olympic Symphonium rolled into Montréal on Thursday night to play at Casa de Popolo. Road-weary and pensive, they put on a great set between Tyler Messick’s loud and layered pop and the whimsical and eclectic Share.

The Olympic Symphonium is a trio of prolific maritime players: Kyle Cunjak and Nick Cobham (both of whom also play in Share), and Graeme Walker (of Grand Theft Bus). More a project than a band, each member writes their own tunes and then arranges them with the other players. The visual effect is a game of musical chairs with players trading off instruments and lead vocal between each song, and the remaining two members offering up a mix of whistles, harmonies and backing parts. The sonic result is some cross between Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico, and doo-wop, all at a whisper.

The OS played a mix of songs off their first album, songs off their upcoming album, and a great cover of “No More Workhorse Blues.” There can be little criticism of this trio’s musicianship. They play sparingly and thoughtfully, and the sound is a sum a little greater than its parts. They do not excite but they do calm and impress. I can’t say that the crowd was totally taken by the act. Their set instead seemed like something of a quiet interlude or respite. A break on the side of the road during a long frantic drive. But maybe that’s what they needed and we wanted.

(The great photo above is by Sarah Brideau. Check out her site for some great work.)

The Impala is a Very Popular Automobile: On the Misunderstood Pleasures of Canoeing

Below is a shortened version of an essay I wrote up after Sam, his father, and our friend Maskull paddled the lower Rupert River last summer. It's cross-posted at Cairo to the Cape.

Our plan was simple. Sam’s father, Dave, would fly in from Vancouver on Tuesday night. I would arrive in Ottawa the next morning. Dave, Maskull and I would spend the day collecting supplies, two canoes, and a rental car. We’d leave Ottawa the next morning for the Rupert River, 900 kilometres north, where we’d take four days to paddle to Rupert Bay and then drive home.

It is a rather delicate matter to rent a car when one intends to strap two canoes to its roof without a proper rack, drive far into Northern Quebec, and then leave the car unattended for four days. First, no car is ideally suited for this. Second, no car rental agency wants to give you a car upon which you are going to mount two canoes. We booked a Chevy Impala, an incredibly pedestrian but flat-roofed car ideal for two canoes. We resolved to say nothing of our intention to load canoes atop the car.

Our first problem was that the agency had no Impalas. Our second was that they did not understand why we were refusing an upgrade to a Grand Prix. Standing at the rental desk, Dave and I pondered over the available cars, compared their virtues in a whispered exchange, and then asked when an Impala might be back. Clearly befuddled by our insistence, the clerk offered up that “The Impala is a very popular automobile. I can understand why you would want it.” The screwed-up skin between her eyebrows suggested she did not understand a thing. Hers was not a look of incredulity but bewilderment. We took a Grand Prix.

All rigged up on the James Bay Highway.

***

The Rupert neither winds nor meanders. It runs a wide line 600 km from Lake Mistassini to Waskaganish, the old Fort Rupert on Rupert Bay, at the bottom of the James Bay. In low season, the river flows at 11,000 cubic feet per second. In high season, it flows at six times the rate and drains more than 40,000 square kilometres. It runs between high banks of scraggly spruce and pine. There is rarely a spot even to pull up a canoe, except those cleared by the Cree who travel this ancient highway.

The Rupert does not “flood its banks” or roar unceasingly down a canyon. Instead, it widens out into lakes for much of its length. The only crashing and running is through a series of narrow passes like the Oatmeal Rapids, a kilometre-long, spine-shattering collection of cascades. It alternates between slow water and probable death.

The bottom of the Oatmeal Rapids. Seen from the James Bay Highway.

The James Bay Highway crosses the river 225 kilometres north of Matagami, itself some 670 kilometres north of Ottawa. The journey begins in the bubbling water at the bottom of the Oatmeal Rapids, where the water spills into a bay and then takes a right turn towards White Beaver Rapids. It is just one hundred kilometres from here to the Bay, but one must still portage seven sets of rapids through muddy trails, alder stands, muskeg, and a moose pond. Or, one has to choose a line, steel nerves and spine, and then shoot the white water. We would do both, at great cost and joy.

***

Our first morning was glorious and cold. We put on extra layers, boiled water for oatmeal and coffee, discussed the day’s challenge and looked over maps. We set out and soon met near disaster.

Landing at the top of the first of the White Beaver rapids, we could not find a portage. Instead, we lugged canoes and gear through thick bush, taking more than an hour to travel less than a quarter mile. We dreaded the mile-long portages ahead, picturing them as day-long fights through the thicket.

Perhaps it was the difficulty of this first portage that compelled Dave and Maskull to run the second set of rapids. As Sam and I landed at the rapids’ head, they shot them. We soon saw a canoe overturned and pinned in a fall. Maskull and Dave stood astride their canoe in the running water. They were, somehow, holding their bags and keeping the canoe from folding over the rock.

The canoe was eventually freed; Maskull and Dave paddled a kinked canoe downstream in search of our food barrel. We were on the first day of a four-day trip, and we’d lost all of our fruit, our food barrel, our hatchet, and a few other sundries.

Sam and I warped our canoe through a rock garden around the rapids. When we met Dave and Maskull at the bottom they’d found the barrel in a bay at the bottom of the rapids. We all changed into the only dry clothes we had left, quickly ate something, and then set out. We still had to go some ninety kilometres to Waskaganish.

Camp in the morning

***

It is not true that the rest of the trip was easy. To the contrary, it involved terribly long portages over some tough ground. On the second day, having left the Cat Rapids late afternoon after a difficult portage, we could not find a camping spot until the Bear Rapids, eventually setting up camp in long grass on a landing in the dark. Where we had contemplated luck and the stars the night before, camped on island in the bay between the second and third of the Fours, on this night we would collapse immediately after dinner. We took no joy in the sound of the waterfall ahead or in the accomplishment of paddling thirty kilometres and portaging five.

The next morning we paddled swiftly to Plum Pudding rapids, two sets of long white water. You avoid the first set by paddling a two-kilometre long braid on the south side of the river. After a short portage, you arrive at the water between the two sets. With some courage and short memory, we chose to shoot the second set. This was our greatest triumph. For two minutes we were voyageurs.

Shooting the Second Set of Plum Pudding

Fifteen kilometres later we arrived at Smoky Hill rapids. The portage counts out more than 5000 paces. It was the most difficult and rewarding portage of the trip. Just thirty kilometres from the Bay, the Cree still use nets to catch white fish at landing the bottom of the Smoky Hill rapids, as they have for five hundred years or more. The also use the landing as a recreation area. We had our greatest night here, finishing our last bottle of wine and eating a terribly good chilli. The locals who watched me swim in the rapids from across the river were the first people we had seen in three days.

The next morning was our last on the river and we took our time. As the river approaches the Bay it widens out and braids around a number of reed islands. We ate in our boats, passing around the last of our bagels and sausage. The water here is not quite brackish, but the change in the landscape must be a result of the ebb and flow of the ocean from Rupert Bay. We had just three sets of rapids - all steep, shallow and rocky – to the bay. We ran them all and then paddled onto Waskaganish.

The camp at Smoky Hill Rapids

***

Formerly Rupert House or Fort Rupert, Waskaganish lies half-way up Rupert Bay, which itself lies at the bottom of James Bay. It was the first fur trading post and store for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Rupert provided a logical route inland to Quebec, a territory hostile to the HBC in its early days. The town was indeed captured by the French at the end of the 17th century and would not return to the Company’s control until 1776. As the Rupert is a great river soon to be dammed, we thought it would be full of paddlers; we were but the fourth group to travel to Waskaganish that summer.

Waskaganish is the third Cree town that Sam and I have visited, and certainly the most vibrant. This vibrancy and activity had a certain irony about it. When we visited Nemaska a summer before – arriving in the dark on our motorcycles and leaving early the next morning – the town seemed dead. The entire town was celebrating a wedding on a sandy point at the other side of the town, so we only met those who stopped by our campsite to visit.

By contrast, Waskaganish seemed full of people, most of them shuffling towards the lodge overlooking the river. But this was on account of death. When soon learned that the previous Friday two teenagers had drowned on a boat trip from Moosenee. At the same time we landed in Waskaganish, Cree were traveling from the other villages and camps for the funeral.

Maskull and I had volunteered to hitchhike back to the highway to get the car. Under these circumstances we were glad to take our leave. Sam and Dave stayed behind to pack our gear and mill about.

When we returned, we decided we would drive back through the night to Ottawa. With the sun coming up along Route 117 and Chelsea seeming like the calmest place on earth, we returned entirely fatigued and satisfied. We were soon to take our individual departures after dividing up the river maps and sorting out gear.

Arriving in Waskaganish

***

It was not long before I returned to my routine in Montreal. It was the same for Dave, Sam, and Maskull, I think. We exchanged emails in the days that followed, sent around pictures, and tried to put to words the joy of the outdoors and the pleasure of this trip.

I would spend the next weeks trying to explain this joy and pleasure to anyone who asked about our trip. How I relished loading up two bags and a barrel and heading into the bush. How I wanted to run more white water. Even how I relished the well-earned cuts and bruises, and how I felt as though I lived more in the five minutes after Maskull and Dave’s dump then I did in a year of academic work and travel.

I think most asked to be polite, but at least some friends and colleagues asked because they wanted to understand this desire to return, to spend one more night sleeping outside, and to run Plum Pudding one more time. I do not think I could ever explain it fully, in a way that could unknot the skin between their eyes. Canoeing is indeed a very popular sport, and the Impala is indeed a very popular automobile.

With apologies to Will Paterson...

I note that Mount A is featured in this story and York is just filler. May it always be so.

Spread the Net

We've announced over at cairotothecape that we'll be supporting Spread the Net on our trip. Please click through to learn about the cause and to donate if you are so inclined.

Cairo to the Cape

For those of you who don't know (hello three readers!), I am riding my motorcycle from Cairo to Cape Town this summer with my friend Sam. We have a site for the trip up here. Please visit often. It will likely get more action than this page in the coming months.

A Prediction

Hillary Clinton will win no more than 5 more primaries between now and the nominating convention.

Spector contra the RCMP

Wow. Norman Spector is throwing some serious bombs at the RCMP. This guy does not mess around.

Charles in Charts

Charles Franklin has some great graphs for Super Tuesday at Pollster.com. It's always fun (for guys like me) to think about how we can show data in an concise and accurate way, and especially in a manner which easily imparts a lot of information. Now, Franklin's charts have not quite reached the status of this, but they are still pretty awesome. Check out the page above and the associated work at Pollster. It's a great website.

On Fundraising

Elections Canada has just released fourth-quarter financial returns for national political parties. The Conservatives have again outstripped the Liberal Party. The Cons raised just under $5 million from 44,000 contributors. This is an average contribution of something like $110. The Liberals, by contrast, raised just under $2 million from about 14,000 Canadians for an average contribution of $143.

The Conservative fundraising machine is still far superior to the Liberal's; they continue to raise more money in smaller donations. These small donations are the key to success in the post-C-24 world. As donors are quite limited in total annual giving, parties who can raise small amounts of money from regular donors are better off. They can return to these donors when in need rather than having to find altogether new donors. So, the Conservatives appear to maintain the advantage, both in total donations and in the average size of donations.

I should note, however, that it is not all bad for the Liberals. Indeed, comparing this quarter's returns with the previous three quarters suggests that they are getting their act together. In the first quarter of last year the party raised just half a million dollars. They increased that to $1.2 million in the second quarter but it dipped down to just $800,000 in the third quarter. So, their fourth quarter was a big improvement. As importantly, they are increasing the number of donors, from just 4300 in the first quarter to 13,618 this quarter. While they average donation per donor is going up (up 17% from Q1) the number of donations is going up faster (up 311% from Q1). This is the key figure and those slogging away in party headquarters should take some real pride in it.

The Liberal Party still has a long way to go in matching the fundraising capabilities of the Conservatives; an ability which is a result not of wealthy donors but an ability to engage partisans. But they are on the right path. Which is all the more reason for Harper to go to the polls soon.

Altruism and Partisanship

For those who are interested, I've been working up a nice little paper on altruism and support for greater public spending (it is the last of my dissertation papers). The data are drawn from a poll of a few thousand people I was involved with last spring. And the measure of altruism is rather unconventional for a survey. Rather than ask individuals about whether they engage in altruistic acts or have an altruistic orientation, we observe their altruism. Specifically, we gave subjects some sum of expected money and then measured how they share it with an anonymous individual (in behavioural economics parlance this is the dictator game). A couple of results are of note, even though the paper is not ready. First, those who are altruistic are more likely to support greater public spending on public and semi-public goods, even when they are made aware that it comes at a cost to themselves in terms of higher taxes. This goes someway in confirming earlier findings which rely on stated rather than revealed altruism. And it goes some way in confronting the argument that people support public spending because they are self-interested and they want to benefit from programs at the cost of others. Second, and this is the more general finding I wanted to flag, I can find no relationship between partisanship and altruism. Tories, Liberals, and Dippers are, on average, equal in their altruism. What is interesting, though, is that their partisanship still matters for public spending, with Libs and Dips supporting greater public spending and Conservative identifiers supporting less. It's a bit of a puzzle I hope to resolve in the next couple of weeks. As always, thoughts are welcome.

Brad Davis

Brad Davis has died, far too young.

A bright young lawyer, Brad worked as a volunteer on Michael Ignatieff's run for Etobicoke-Lakeshore and then became his director of policy on his leadership campaign. He then followed Ignatieff back to Ottawa before returning to Toronto and the practice of law. It was during Iggy's leadership campaign there that I came to know him. He coyly roped me into writing a memo on equalization (which soon led to a lot more memos). He was remarkably smart and a did a remarkable job marshalling together information and turning it into daring policy.

There is no shortage of words to describe Brad: hard-working, focussed, funny, witty, sarcastic, biting, incisive, determined, stubborn, brilliant. I give you everyone in the most complimentary sense. More importantly, Brad was a father who leaves behind a family. So say a prayer for them and for him, and then go out and do something good and that you believe in.

UPDATE: Jane Taber has a succinct and touching obituary on Brad here.

Kenyan Killings Planned?

This is a terribly sad and worrying article.

Time to strip Guergis of her cabinet post

I am with Dion on this one. Helena Guergis should be made to resign for revealing that Dion and Ignatieff were to visit a provincial reconstruction team while during their visit in Afghanistan. Leave aside Guergis' uncivil claim that it was somehow ironic they were visiting the soliders they apparently don't support. And leave aside too her claim that she doesn't know why it took them so long to go. (Answer: because her department set that as the date for them). And leave aside the assertation that this revelation endangered the lives of Dion and Ignatieff. All of that is rather irrelevant as soon as you consider that Guergis revealed top secret information. This is highly contrary to her obligations as a minister. It also reveals a surprising lack of judgement or seriousness.

If Bob Coates was made to resign for potentially exposing NATO secrets to strippers, then Helena Guergis should be made to resign for actually revealing top secret information to that salivating press corp in Ottawa. And shame on them for even publishing the stuff...

No Torture, No Vote

From the blog of my friend Jim Johnson, I read that the National Review is withholding its endorsement from John McCain. Now, this is not only because he supports the reasonable accommodation of millions of hardworking and taxpaying residents of the US. And it's not only because he opposes tax cuts during war time. No, it's also because he does not support the US waterboarding prisoners.

For those of you who don't know, every reasonable person in the world thinks that waterboarding is a form of torture. Also for those who don't know, the National Review Online is ridiculous and unworthy of your readership. Find it for yourself, if you like.

Sir Edmund Hillary, 88

Sir Edmund Hillary has died. Shed a tear or go climb something high humbly.

On Cynics

I think I would be better at the cynic schtick if I could do it half as well as Dan. The evidence herein.

On Cinema

I saw two great movies last week: I'm Not There and No Country For Old Men. The first is the fictionalization of Bob Dylan's life from the time of his emergence to his motorcycle crash in 1966. Dylan is portrayed by six different characters, none of whom actually go by Dylan's name. The best moments are provided by Cate Blanchett - she captures all of Dylan's posturing, nervousness, deceit and brilliance - and by Jim James and Calexico's rendition of Going to Acapulco. The rest of the movie is merely great.

No Country For Old Men is something different entirely. I did not enjoy a minute of it. I cannot wait to see it again. The brothers Coen have not made their best movie, but they have set a recent standard for faithful adaptation of a novel and for unremitting tension. If you want to get a sense of what happens when a man takes on a task and a landscape bigger then himself, unaware of its danger and sure of his ability, watch this movie and consider how ignoble and plain is the protagonist's end.

That shall likely be it until the New Year, so best of the season to my three readers.

Romney goes half way

Here are excerpts from Mitt Romney's speech tonight. They include nothing on how he justified belonging to and proselytizing for an officially racist organization. I guess he's saving that explanation for the full speech.

If you think I am being hard on Romney, you're wrong. Any man who follows a religion which believed just thirty years ago that blacks lacked souls and denied them the sacrements should be made to explain if he was at least uncomfortable with this doctrine. If his response was that it took a "revelation" to church elders to correct his view, then you have to wonder whether he'll look to similar revelations when he's in the White House.

There should be, of course, no religious test for the presidency. But we should be willing to expect a candidate to explain his adherence to a racist doctrine, just as he should be made to explain whether he believes the commandements of elders in his church take precedence over the US constitution and its laws.

A question for the RCMP Commissioner

What exactly is the purpose of the RCMP going to Poland to look into Robert Dziekanski's "medical history as well as his criminal history in Poland." I can understand the need to investigate the first, indeed it is relevant to figuring out whether he died because of some precondition or because the officers electrocuted* him and then proceeded to kneel on his chest and throat, entirely contrary to the RCMP's own guidelines. But why the second? It must be because police officers can somehow smell a criminal and thus don't have to ask any questions before using lethal force. We know just need to confirm their intuitions.

A criminal history is entirely irrelevant to police action in this case. A man in distress was killed by the RCMP despite posing no lethal threat to them. Whether he was a criminal in Poland or not is irrelevant.

Let's just hope that when the RCMP officers get off the plane and try to clear customs in Warsaw that they don't smell like criminals to the officers there.

In other news related to the RCMP, apparently you can fear for your life even when you have a gun stuck in the nape of someone's neck. Strange.

* Can we stop using Taser as a verb? We have a suitable word already: electrocution.

The genetics of voter turnout

A little more than a year after this, Fowler and Dawes have released another working paper demonstrating a genetic component to the decision to vote. Rather than relying on twin studies, however, this time they have obtained genetic mappings from subjects in a multi-wave, long-term study of adolescents in the United States. The results are extremely interesting, especially because they identify two genes which play a role in the decision to vote, and because these genes interact with religiosity. This at least partially answers the question of why the religious are more likely to vote without relying on an argument about the skills gained through religious observance.

This, I should think, is the future of political science.

My favourite line, by the way, is "Genes are the institutions of the human body."

Is Paul Pritchard a hero?

Hardly. Paul Pritchard, you probably know, is the 25 year old man who filmed Robert Dziekanski being electrocuted and then pinned on the chest and throat by the RCMP. He was one of many witnesses not only to Dziekanski's death, but also his confusion, delerium, panic, fear, breakdown, unravelling, distress, and helplessness.

Let me be entirely clear: Pritchard is a hero only because the RCMP killed someone in whose distress he was taking great pleasure and entertainment. Indeed, in an interview with CBC Radio, Pritchard said he thought he could use one man's distress for entertainment and perhaps some noteriety. Lucky for him, the RCMP proceeded to kill the man he merely mocked. Had they not, he would have been just another person uploading someone else's shame onto YouTube.

If you want to find a hero in this, it's Sima Ashrafinia, the only bystander with the courage and compassion to try to help Dziekanski. Let's not glorify Pritchard any more than we have. His 15 minutes were up as soon as the media obtained his tape.

To William Elliott, An Open Letter

Dear Commissioner,

I understand you are concerned that "growing misperceptions are eroding the public's confidence in the RCMP." Une petit suggestion: I would be more concerned about proper perceptions. For example, that the RCMP actively covered-up its role in the extradition of a Canadian to face torture in Syria. Or, par example, that an RCMP officer recently got off shooting a captive citizen in the back of the head. Or, that four officers, in seeing a man in distress, thought the best course of action was not to ask those around what had happened, not to seek a translater, or not to take more than a minute to assess the situation, but rather to run him through with 50,000 volts of electricity. It strikes me that you might want to be concerned with these perceptions. Then move on to the misperceptions.

Peter

Presidential Politics Get Nasty, but Maybe Not Enough

The Times Online has a nice summary story on the latest controversies in the presidential primaries. Despite the fact that the nominating conventions are still 8 or 9 months away, things are already getting nasty. Two things are going on. First, the Clinton folks are suggesting on background that they have some nasty business on Obama, but are refusing to share it. Who knows if they do. Either way it's hardball politics.

The second story is that in the last week someone was calling around Iowa doing some message testing on Mitt Romney, most of which turns on his Mormonism. The basic story is that some firm is calling households asking them, after 20 or so questions, whether they'd be more or less likely to vote for Romney for the nomination if they knew about some of the features of his relgion. Many, including Romney, have been mistakenly calling this is a "push poll". It's not. Push polls don't waste 20 questions before imparting negative information. They get right to it, because they are meant to reach several multiples more people than a poll which is message testing.

Nomenclature aside, what I think these stories are missing is a more central question. Namely, should voters be less likely to vote for Romney since he is a Mormon? Now, I for one don't really care if Romney follows the Mormon god or Zeus, but I would like him to answer the following question: Did he believe before 1978 that black males should be full participants in his church's sacrements? Because his Church certainly did not. No, they had to wait for a "revelation" before they realized that skin colour shouldn't preclude full participation. Religion is a private matter, perhaps, until it calls into question a politician's commitment to equal rights. So, let's take these questions out of polls and put them into a larger public space. I wonder which journalist will be the first to ask Romney when it dawned on him that his Church's doctrine was racist.

UPDATE: I guess this must be the reason why Romney doesn't want to talk about his religion. You don't want to give youth the idea that you could be an active leader in a church which had a fundamentally racist doctrine and then still become President.

Dear X Grad:

Nice Ring. Don't let the door get you on your way out.

Mount A is Number #1 again. As it always should be.

Harper in a Jam

Clearly, this promises to be a sticky situation for Harper. One can only hope he is able to preserve his spread in the polls in the face of this. Otherwise, questions may begin to be raised about whether he is lacking the royal jelly. In other words, he may be toast.

Think MMP could have won? Think again.

Daniel Rubenson and I cooked up the following op-ed. It didn't get picked up, so I've posted it here.

Advocates of electoral reform suffered a great blow with the defeat of a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system in the Ontario referendum earlier this month. Recommended by a non-partisan Citizens’ Assembly, this new system was endorsed by prominent Canadians of every partisan stripe. It was, they claimed, a more democratic electoral system. Yet the reform still lost, almost two-to-one.


Like an athlete after losing the season’s last match, advocates of MMP look to place blame. They argue that the proposal was little understood, and Elections Ontario’s education efforts fell short of the mark. They assert that holding the referendum during an election drowned out any real debate on the reform. Had the referendum stood alone, Ontarians would have paid attention to the issue and understood the proposal. Under those conditions they surely would have voted for reform.


They argue, in essence, that the result did not accurately reflect the public will.


These claims are probably impossible to prove. They are also likely wrong.


Reformers wag an accusatory finger at Elections Ontario, claiming that the organization did not educate or inform voters enough. They say: The campaign was too neutral and failed to communicate the values supporting MMP.


We say: Casting aside the questionable idea that a neutral government agency should play a role in promoting some democratic values over others, their objection still rings hollow. Why? Because voters don’t need to know the details of a policy to know whether or not they should throw their support behind it.


In-depth knowledge of electoral systems may thrill many-a-political scientist. And many of them think this knowledge is crucial to being a good citizen.


But this view is both elitist and wrong.


Modern political science demonstrates that voters effectively use a number of short cuts, or heuristics, to make the same decisions they would make if fully informed. They talk to their neighbours and friends. They look to their political leaders. They even look to the opinion pages of newspapers.


Citizens find these shortcuts in countless places. And with even a minimal amount of information, voters make choices consistent with the decisions they would make under different conditions.


What if the referendum wasn’t held during an election? Would it have had a better chance? If voters were more exposed to the arguments for electoral reform, would they be more likely to give it their support?


In short: Were the arguments for electoral reform winning arguments?


As scholars of public opinion, we wanted to know which side had the most convincing arguments in the electoral reform debate. We conducted an experiment during the last week of the referendum campaign using the Innovative Research Group’s online survey panel.


We presented participants with one of six arguments for MMP and one of six for the status quo. For example, “A first past the post system is better because it creates strong majority governments that can implement their policies” vs “A mixed member proportional system is better because parties should get the same share of seats as their share of the vote.” We had participants in the survey choose between them.


Our results are clear. The argument that every Member of Provincial Parliament should be locally elected overpowers every argument for MMP. In head-to-head match-ups, no argument from advocates of MMP convinces a sufficient number of voters to prefer the new system.


The arguments do not favour MMP. Even if voters paid sustained attention to the referendum, it is not clear that they would have been convinced by what they heard.


Even though the MMP loss was a blow to electoral reformers, it was not a blow for democracy. “Losers’ consent” is among the most important features of a proper democracy, where those on the short end of an outcome accept it as fair.


No doubt, this is difficult. But the idea of electoral reform has its own persuasive force and will not die with this loss. However, it's crucial that those who claim to be great democrats begin to act less like sore losers looking for someone to blame, and more like a team determined to do better next time around.

Into the Wild

On Friday, I headed to the Parc with three great friends to see Into the Wild. The film is everything the critics have claimed: beautifully shot, elegantly and sparsely scored by Eddie Vedder, and terribly well-written. This is much to Sean Penn's credit, however great the original accounts by John Krakauer.

For those who don’t know the story, the movie recounts the real life journey of Chris McCandless, a young, idealistic, ram-rod righteous, and driven man. A fresh graduate of Emory University, he gives away his remaining college fund to Oxfam, intentionally ends contact with his family, and decides to tramp across America. After two years, he makes his way to Alaska, heading alone into the bush in April. He soon finds an abandoned-bus-turned-hunt camp. He is terribly unprepared, carrying a meagre 10 lb bag of rice, a rifle, a pad and sleeping bag, and other sundries, including a guide to local flaura and fauna. He has no proper map, and thus no firm knowledge of the topography of his surroundings.

He has, apparently, little knowledge of the local wildlife, either. In June, McCandless' journal records the shooting of a large moose, which Krakauer claims was a large caribou. These are not similar animals. If Krakauer’s account is correct, and if Penn’s portrayal is wrong, then this suggests the McCandless was quite distinctly unprepared for his adventure.

Despite this unpreparedness, McCandless survives until July. He decides then that he has proven his point, tested his resilience, and that the time has come either for an end to adventures or for a new one. But as he leaves his camp and makes his trek back to the road, he finds that the waist deep finger of a river he crossed on his way out is now a chest-deep and raging arm of water. Writing "DISASTER" in his journal that night, he is left to again scratch out an existence from the abandoned bus. What the movie does not reveal is that the river could be easily crossed just a few miles upstream. With no map, McCandless could not know this. He is instead left again to his devices.

McCandless eventually starves to death, probably because he was eating a poisonous root, misidentified in his field guide, which prevented his body from absorbing any nutrients. His body is found some weeks later, alone in a blue sleeping bag his mother had knit for him many years earlier.

The scene of McCandless’ death, if the metaphor is not too crude, is simply breathtaking. It is some strange mix of horror and stoicism. It is also likely wrong. If Krakauer is to be believed, McCandless’ death was not welcome. Rather, those who found his body first found the following note on the outside of his bus:

"S.O.S I need your help. I am injured, near death, and too weak to hike out of here. I am all alone, this is no joke. In the name of God, please remain to save me. I am out collecting berries close by and shall return this evening. Thank you. Chris McCandless. August ?”

This was no welcomed death. There was no evidence of courage. There were no signs of a stoic passing. Instead, there were just signs that a young man’s luck had finally run out, that his righteousness had gotten him no where, and that he knew it.

There is no question: this is a breathtaking movie. And it is angering. There is no undue compassion invoked for McCandless. But, still, I cannot understand why Penn does not go the extra step and tell the story with extreme accuracy. Why does he omit, for example, that McCandless was an afternoon’s walk up the river from safety? Why does he not reveal McCandless’ ignorance of ungulates? And why, even at the end, does he omit the trip of his half-brother, one of six-half siblings of which Penn only reveals one, to retrieve his ashes? Why does he say it was only his sister who made the journey?

This is a breathtaking movie because it tells a true story and tells it well. But it was a story which needed no embellishment, and it’s for shame that Penn chose to ignore some fundamental truths.

Team Player

Denis Coderre has turned down Stephane Dion's offer to make him Quebec lieutenant. I guess he should quit now. He does have an MBA, after all. He could open a restaurant called Team Player.

A Personal Note

I just had the most positive customer service experience of my life with Bell Mobility. Not just with Bell Mobility either. And I am not being sarcastic. Honestly.

Magna and the CAW

I worked for Frank Stronach and Magna Int. for two summers. Watching the executive operations of a company was one of the luckier opportunities in my life. The highlight of both of these summers was occassionally bumping into Stronach, or listening to him wax to summer students in the boardroom, or watching him at the head of an employee meeting in a plant. He is strangely charismatic and so consistently unpredictable. This "Frank Factor" has, at times, probably discounted the stock of Magna. But it's hard to imagine what Magna would be without him. So, when this was announced today, I was greatly suprised. But I wouldn't bet against its long-term success.

On the MMP Referendum

There is a lot of grumbling in the media today about the failure of MMP to win the referendum. A lot of it is coming from academics. Here's a nice example.

I don't have much to add to this debate, save the following three points:

i) There is absolutely no evidence right now that the Elections Ontario education campaign was ineffective. There are some rather esoteric statistical reasons for why this can be said with confidence, but it's true.
ii) There is little evidence that I know of which suggests that the arguments for MMP are more convincing than those for FPTP, when they are pitted head-to-head.
iii) We don't know if the YES side's campaign was effective or not. Indeed, their materials may very well have turned voters off electoral reform.

This is an admittedly very self-serving post. I have no horse in this race, but I am in the process of completing a study on the referendum with Daniel Rubenson. We are both pretty ambivalent about electoral reform, but we are curious about the reasons for the reform campaign's failure or success. To that end, during the election we conducted a series of experiments -- both in the field and in surveys -- to try to answer the questions above. And we now have a survey in the field which will also help to answer them. We'll have no quick answers, but they'll likely be alright and plausible when they do come out, and they certainly won't be as self-serving as those proferred up in the article cited above. It's time that advocates for electoral reform - those great democrats - at least acknowledge the possibility that other citizens may not share their views. Academics should be at the forefront of that.

The case for Dion forcing an election

This is almost certainly a mistake. Advisors to Stephane Dion, presumably the new ones which he has brought in, are counselling him to take on the Tories case by case after the Throne Speech, rather than opposing the speech and triggering an election.

By being outfoxed by Duceppe and Layton, Dion's strategic judgement could be called into question. That is, by allowing them to set their terms of negotiation, he was put against the wall and forced to either accept the government's agenda or call an election. Instead, he appears ready to take a third route, which is to oppose the government on legislation as it comes. This calls his strategic judgement - or that of his advisors - into even greater question. Here is why: this scenario only plays out in two ways. First, Harper gets all the legislation he wants. Second, Dion forces Harper's hand on some obscure piece of legislation and suddenly we're having an election over amendments to the wheat board, or minimum sentences for drug trafficking, or some other small issue. Dion will be seen to have forced the election, and Harper will be able to ask him why he would call Canadians back to the polls over such a small issue.

There is an alternative to this. It is to roll the dice. Oppose the speech from the throne in vigorous terms on the grounds that it is entirely contrary to the Liberal program. Then put it to the people. This is Dion's best course of action. Here's why. First, the opposition within his own party is not going to die down. If they get a clear signal that there will be no election for a year or 18 months they will continue to undermine him. So, the worst case scenario for Dion is that he is eventually forced to step down after a long, Fabian battle. Second, the best he can be in a year from now if he doesn't trigger an election is Leader of the Opposition with 90-some seats. However, if Dion triggers an election, the downside doesn't change. He could still get thrown overboard. But the upside is potentially larger: he could become prime minister if several things fall into place and Harper makes a few mistakes. It seems highly unlikely at this point, but it is not zero-probability. So the downside is the same, but the upside is higher. The only conditions under which waiting make sense are if Dion can force an election under more favourable terms. This seems highly unlikely. Instead, he will have to force it over some small issue, or wait until Harper has pushed through one or two more budgets. The stars are hardly aligned for Mr Dion - and it makes a lot of us honestly sad, because we've had high hopes - but the time to go is now.

UPDATE: It occurs to me that this whole case with Dion after the Throne Speech is a nice illustration of the struggle between leaders and local members. From Dion's perspective, he cares principally about his leadership and advancing his party (with him at the helm). He is as capable of backward induction as anyone else (that is, working backwards from likely outcomes to determine actions), and he certainly must have sensed that now was the time to go. But many media reports suggested the view was not shared by his MPs. This is fair enough: they do not want to lose their jobs either, and probably a third to half of them view themselves as being in marginal ridings. Dion likely doesn't care which MPs win, so long as he has the same number more or less after the election. But those losing MPs do, as their interests are put before those of the party. It's a thought for another post, perhaps.

Oral Roberts "University" scandal

I guess when God tells your father to build a university to God's glory but to name it after himself that something like this is the logical result.

UPDATE: Oral Roberts has assured the OR"U" community that the devil won't steal their university. I imagine the devil already checked the bank balance and figured it wasn't worth the effort. He may want to look into Richard Roberts' account, though. What's the phrase? Ah yes, Chaucerian fraud.

Hitchens Cut Open

Daniel sent me this article. It is Christopher Hitchens' account of finding out that a soldier who he inspired to enlist in the war in Iraq was killed by an IED. Hitchens goes on to meet the solider's family. It's a pretty amazing story of a man coming to terms with the consequences of his words, all the while not using that reckoning to make himself any bigger or proud.

Funny...

Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski, a member of the Commons standing committee on procedure and affairs, wants Mark Mayrand, the Chief Electoral Officer, to read between the lines of Bill C-31. You see, even though the law actually says nothing about Muslim women reveiling their faces, and even though everything Mayrand has mandated accords strictly with the law, Mayrand is in the wrong for not reading into the law so see what it actually meant. You know, like judges do...

Craig Chandler

Craig Chandler must be the single most comical guy in Canadian politics. Just two weeks ago he was suggesting that those who don't vote Conservative should leave Alberta. Now, Craig doesn't care which conservative party you vote for. Heck, he's run for all of them! But if you want to be Albertan, you must vote conservative. I guess the sad thing is that it's not the most absurd thing he's ever said.

I had an email exchange with Craig today which ended with him claiming that Stephen Harper asked him to run for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 2003 (a run which he did in fact make). This seems like quite an explosive claim. Chandler is asserting that he was put up for a leadership run by the leader of another party. It would actually be quite newsworthy, I should think, if it were to be believed.

PS Check out the sweet advertising on his website!

On a silly bike...

Mark Richardson has an article on Harleys in today's Star. Now, he's just returned from riding out to Sturgis on an HD, so I guess it's to be expected that his brain wouldn't be working terribly well. Mine often doesn't after a few days in the saddle. Nonetheless, for those of you unacquainted with the world of motorcycles, let me state my point up front: Harley Davidsons are not good motorcycles, if they ever were.

Richardson starts out the article by stating that a Harley can't really be compared with other motorcycles. This is true enough. It is worse than all of its competitors on every practical dimension. But then he somehow draws the conclusion that Harley's still (if they ever) provide value for the money and are still respectable motorcycles. Let me put this as clearly as possible. From every objective standard, Harley Davidson motorcycles are overpriced and provide incredibly poor performance. They can rarely reach even moderately high speeds, they do not handle well in corners, and they have quite substandard pick-up. They are comfortable, but so is a chesterfield. Then again, chesterfields only get about 1000 miles less riding each year than the average Harley.

For the money you pay for a Harley you could generally spend 75% as much and get a Japanese bike which did everything just as well. Now, it wouldn't be a Harley, and it wouldn't have that unique sound which indicates that you are riding on decades-old and antiquated technology. But it will do everything a motorcycle should do better.

This is admittedly just a rant a day after seeing about 1000 Harleys this weekend and probably not a good rider among them. But seriously, if I have to see another middle-aged man buy a bike which he spends more time polishing than riding, totally blissful in his ignorance of what a poor machine he owns, I am going to cry. Or I am going to ride away somewhere that he can't come, or would never think to try.

On a bike...

I passed my 25,000th km on a motorcycle yesterday. My father came across from North Bay on Friday, and yesterday we rode down to Smugglers Notch and Stowe, then across the White Mountain forest and up Mount Washington. This was the single most enjoyable 8 miles of motorcycling I ever completed, beginning in thick forest and ending above the trees in clouds with 25 feet of visibilty.

All in all, it's been a wonderful first bit of motorcycling, of which I should hope for many more bits. I have been meaning for months to write up my trip reports - including the week my father and I took across Spain in March, the loop around Le Gaspesie and down to Halifax that Sam and I did in May, and the 9-day loop Sam and I just completed across the Trans-Labrador Highway, down Newfoundland, back through Sackville and then home. I shall write these soon, I promise. I've been put off only by the difficulty of trying to capture what it is I love so much about being on a bike, away from home and the grind of school. In short, I think it's two things. First, it's a time when I do some of my best and most clear thinking. And it's also time when I do less thinking that any other time. I think it's good for the mind. And I think, to cop Burt Munro, a man lives more in 5 minutes on a motorcycle than some men live in their whole lives. Anyways, more to come...

Cynics Without Borders

With the creation of this blog, I have more or less lost my purpose. Everyone, meet Danistan. Danistan, meet my three readers.

More to be posted soon, but perhaps not until I return from a bike trip to Labrador at the end of the week.

Godwin's Law and Ellison's Dishonesty

Rep. Keith Ellison, the first moslem Congressman in the US House of Representatives suggested yesterday that the Bush administration may have been complicit in 9/11. He also compared Bush to Hitler. But that seems old hat by now. We all know Godwin's law is as true as the rising sun.

I want to try out an argument on you, fair readers. Can we believe that Rep. Ellison actually believes it possible that the American government was involved in 9/11? Put more precisely, would someone who actually and honestly believed that a democratic government was so capricious and brutal that it would kill 3000 of its own citizens actually feel comfortable stating that in public? Consider this thought experiment. If you were to go to the Congo, how loudly and comfortably would you declare that the government is guilty of human rights abuses? How about in Khartoum? How about, to use Mr. Ellison's example, in Nazi Germany. Clearly, Mr. Ellison is either dishonest or he is crazy and suicidal. Surely it's not the latter.

SiCKO

I saw SiCKO tonight. I was affected. And I was pleased that Michael Moore has finally made a movie which appeals not to smugness, distaste for the less intelligent, or intellectual superiority. Instead, he gets right down to the crux of the question: why hasn't American solved the collective action problem of universal health coverage the way everyone else has? Put more bluntly, why is America the only developed country in the world which subjects so many citizens to so much hassle, trouble, trial and effort to get what is their due as humans?

I generally dislike Moore's docs, though I appreciate their quality. But he has overcome my most fundamental objections. He finally seems genuinely caring and shocked by what he sees and makes us see. It's a film worth watching. For all its exaggerations, it gets the central story right and puts the challenge to those who revere American health care.

Bush-league RCMP

Wouldn't it be just as wise to recommend that RCMP officers make it a policy to not shoot those they arrest in the back of the head? Or that they not treat a body any differently even if its theresult of a killing by a fellow officer?

I wish William Elliot all the luck in the world. And I wish Paul Koester a lifetime of sleepless nights.

Hand it to Layton, at least he's linguistically consistent when he betrays his internationalism.

Watch the second and third questions in this press conference and then ask yourself whether Jack Layton's internationalism has ever meant a thing.

UPDATE: J Kay says everything I wanted to here.

UPDATE2: If you want to see the heroes who were killed today, go here. You can go here if you want to see people who don't understand for a minute why these heroes served - probably with chests full of pride.

UPDATE3: I am reminded of this hilarious post.

UdeM denounces boycott of Israeli universities

I am a proud student of the political science department at the Universite de Montreal. I am also a constantly annoyed customer of the institution. But, I must say that this makes me very proud. It is the right thing to do.

Speeding in Ontario

As a social scientist, I found this article very interesting. The article overviews an emerging debate about whether to reintroduce photo radar in Canada. I think it nicely illustrates how poor public policy can be made. The basic story is that there have been a number of recent highway deaths in Ontario related to excessive speed. Obviously, then, speed needs to be reduced. So the minister of transportation has suggested limiting the speed of truckers to 105 km/h. And the Canada Safety Council and the Hamiton Chief of Police have suggested reintroducing photoradar. It's all justified, as the minister of transportation observes, because ""There's no question that there is a correlation between speed and crashes and collisions."" This seems quite obvious. What is not obvious is that introducing video cameras on the highway will break this connection or reduce speed more generally. And it's also not obvious that restricting the speed of transports is in the public interest.

For me, some questions still remain. First, is there actually an appreciable increase in street racing and related deaths ? I mean, aside from the increased media attention on it? In other words, are we really facing an epidemic? And, if we're not, then why is now the time to focus resources on addressing this? Second, does photo radar work? In the cited article, at least, advocates present no evidence that it actually works. Quite the contrary, the article presents evidence that it only slows down drivers when there is an obvious radar van around, and then it does so because drivers (and radio stations, too) don't mind warning one another that there is a van near by. Unless one parks these vans on every street, then there is unlikely to be an appreciable general decrease in speeding. Third, Emile Therien notes that it was politics and not safety that lead to the abolishment of photo radar in 1995. This seems correct. But is it relevant? And, if it is, isn't it relevant that it's politics and not safety which is allowing his calls for a reintroduction?

I can drink to that....

Apparently, people attempting to bring liquids and gels onto planes is delaying air traffic. Of course, it's the fault of passengers, not the fault of either stupid regulations or arbitrary enforcement which just encourages people to push the rules. I wonder what a solution to this might be? Getting rid of the assinine regulation, perhaps?

Prime Minister's Question Time

I do believe I will be spending a lot of time here in the future. Blair is unmatched on his feet. If for no other reason - and make no mistake, I think there are many reasons - it's a shame he's gone.

Political Futures Markets

Slate is running a political futures market, which is an aggregator of four different presidential prediction markets. Political stock markets allow individuals to buy a future which typically pays off $100 for the predicted outcome, i.e. you can pay $20 to bet Obama will win the nomination, and it pays off $100 if he does. By comparing current prices, one can get a sense of the wisdom of crowds on which candidates are favoured.

This has been similarly applied in Canada at the UBC Election Stock Market to great success. They outperformed every pollster in 2006 save SES. A betting person would suggest they will in the future.

Not my job...

And once again a Quebec union leader shows himself to be of unimpeachable judgment. Who honestly uses the "it's not my job" excuse when a man is beating a woman about the head? Apparently we'll have to bargain for basic humanity among STM guards in their next contract.

Crosbie and Martin on the Atlantic Accords

There is a lot wrong with John Crosbie and Roland Martin's opinion piece on the Atlantic Accords in today's Globe. I will limit myself to two short objections.

First, they claim that the Atlantic Accord is an "economic development" deal, like the auto industry in Ontario or aerospace in Quebec. This is a faulty analogy. In both of those cases, there is an argument that these industries would not exist if they were not subsidized. In the case of Nova Scotia, the offshore industry already exists. It doesn't require a subsidy to thrive. Indeed, nothing in the Atlantic Accord is about supporting an offshore industry, it is merely about letting NS keep all of the spoils. When Ontario is allowed to deduct auto industry revenues from its fiscal capacity, then the analogy will hold.

Second, they tell the reader not to worry, because if NS is not an equalization receiving province in 2011-12, then the Accord will run out. But honestly, who among us believes that if you don't count resource revenues, that NS won't be receiving equalization in four years? The obviously will. Despite the claims of Rodney and Co. that the federal government wishes to consign them to permanent have not status, it is in fact the opposite that is true. NS wants to be equalization receiving for as long as possible, which it will be as long as resource revenue is kept out of the equation.

Update: Jason Hickman, in his fair and reasonable comments to my post, notes that Alberta was allowed to receive both the benefits of its oil revenues as well as equalization payments in the beginnings of the equalization formula. One often hears this stated, but with little explanation. After doing a modicum of reading, this is the reality (which is not far off Jason's point, except in its implication). When equalization was formally introduced in 1957, a national average was used and fiscal capacity was calculated using personal, corporate and inheritence taxes. This changed five years later when natural resource revenues were added. Alberta was then dropped from equalization.

The implications of this are clear: it is not true that Alberta was given exceptional treatment. Instead, it was given the same treatment as every other province under the equalization formula of the day. When that formula was changed, Alberta no longer received equalization. Whether it did so with or without kicking and screaming is besides the point. The empirical reality is that no exceptions were made. It seems fair enough to ask that those who invoke Alberta's first experience with equalization as instructive would also embrace the second.

Am I going to cheer for McLaren?

If Lewis Hamilton wins one more race and/or does one more thing like this, I think I am going to start cheering for McLaren (though I should admit I was rooting for him at Montreal). This guy appears to be the real deal: an exceptionally talented driver and a true sportsman. Let's hope this is enough to goad the Rain King out of retirement.

Three Non-Random Thoughts

1.) I've just returned from a couple of days in Wisconsin. I gave a little talk on collective action problems and global health at the World Affairs Seminar. Ten years ago, I attended the Seminar as a high school student. It was a great and important experience then, and returning now was equally important. It easily borders on cliché to suggest that today's youth are the hope of tomorrow and then to assert that the future is in good hands. But, after a couple of days around whip-smart high school kids, all of whom have their hearts in the right place, I am closer to believing the cliché is true.

2.) This is an extremely counter-intuitive but convincing paper. It argues that to maintain trade openness in the United States - to defeat the protectionist racket - greater wealth distribution is required. There is an easy knee-jerk reaction to this argument, but I encourage you to read the paper. It's thought-provoking if nothing else.

3.) Dan Leger has more courage than ninety-nine percent of other journalists. He sets aside some serious myths in today's Chronicle-Herald regarding the current debates over equalization. I've avoided blogging on the topic, though I've had some great back and forth with some of my smarter friends in Nova Scotia. For the time being, let me say that Leger captures my sentiments, as does this piece by Coyne.

Party Switching in Malawi

I am neither here nor there on the proper etiquette of floor-crossing. If forced to choose, I'd say MPs are free to sit in whichever caucus they want; their voters can pass judgment at the next election. So, I merely note with interest that Malawi's Supreme Court disagrees, and has empowered the speaker of that parliament to expel MPs who switch parties. This ruling could effectively topple the Malawian government. It kind of puts Garth Turner and Peter Van Loan's ongoing spat into perspective.

The final episode

I just finished watching the final episode of the Sopranos. I am not sure I will ever see another television show of this calibre. It was simply breathtaking.

Hey Jeff Watson...

Hey Jeff Watson, how does this sound? When you learn to speak French, however badly accented, then you can make fun of Stephane Dion's accent by mimicking it in members' statements, just before Question Period. But, how about until then you just stick to making statements in your normal voice?

For the Driver

I have been jammed up with writing (and riding) over the last couple of weeks, so posting has obviously been sporadic. However, I really wanted to note this news story. I think it's one of compassion and remarkable empathy. I should hope that I would have the grace to act equally in such a situation. I also note how much it reminds me of this great song.

Why read Tim Shipman when you can read Wikipedia?

The Sunday Telegraph ran an interesting piece yesterday on Fred Thompson, the former Senator and current Law and Order actor who is quite likely to contest for the Republican presidential nomination. After reading the piece, written by Tim Shipman, I looked up Thompson on Wikipedia to get a little more background on him. Then I wondered if I was reading the same article again.

Of Thompson's first foray into acting, Shipman writes:

"He was then asked to play himself in a 1985 film about a real-life judicial corruption scandal in Tennessee, supposedly because the producers could not find a professional actor who could portray him plausibly."

The wiki say:

"The 1977 Ray Blanton-Tennessee Parole Board scandal later became the subject of a book and a movie titled Marie (1985) in which Thompson played himself, supposedly because the producers were unable to find a professional actor who could play him plausibly."

That's a very close crib.

The next paragraph is an even more intentional lifting. While Shipman leaves the quotes in context, he does nothing to indicate that the preceding sentence is basically directly from Wikipedia. Thompson writes:

"He has been a popular choice for on-screen authority figures, playing variously a White House chief of staff, a CIA boss, a highly placed FBI agent, and a senator. As one New York Times critic noted: "When Hollywood directors need someone who can personify governmental power, they often turn to him.""

The wiki is:

Thompson would go on to appear as the amoral demagogue "Dr. Knox Pooley" in a five episode story arc of the TV series Wiseguy (1988), and has also been in subsequent feature films, including No Way Out (1987), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and In the Line of Fire (1993). A 1994 New York Times profile described his authoritative character roles as such: "The glowering, hulking Mr. Thompson has played a White House chief of staff, a director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a highly placed F.B.I. agent, a rear admiral, even a senator. When Hollywood directors need someone who can personify governmental power, they often turn to him."

I've checked the history on the wiki, and there is nothing indicating that it was rewritten to reflect the Shipman article. So it seems pretty clear that Shipman used Wikipedia, which is great. The problem is that he plagiarized it, which isn't great.

Advance voting in Ontario

The Ontario government is proposing extending voting hours and doubling the number of days for advance voting in the October election. They think this will stem declining turnout. It won't and it comes at the risk of making election outcomes less coherent. I have a paper which tries to show why, but you'd be even better to read this paper.

On the Greens and the Liberals...

Having just returned from a great day of academic meetings in Chicago, here are my quick two-cents on the May-Dion deal:

i) May has just torpedoed the chances of every other Green candidate save her. Suppose a voter wants to support environmental action. Why in the world would they waste their vote on the Green candidate when they can vote for a Liberal candidate who comes with Ms May's seal of approval.
ii) There is nothing unseemly or untoward about this. At worst, it is awkward. The logic of a plurality system is that the number of parties is always being winnowed. This is why the Progressive Conservatives and the Alliance merged (and, by the way Monte, that happened in a backroom as well). That May has recognized that she cannot win and achieve her objectives on her own and has essentially merged with the Liberals is to her credit. As for Dion, not running a candidate in Central Nova is a small price to pay.
iii) It will be extremely hard to estimate and demonstrate after the election, but I think this is worth 2 points for the Liberals.

On Belinda...

What exactly do you call someone who entered politics with so much promise but then left after just three years as an MP with a reputation for speaking out against their party's leadership, doing their own thing, and generally finding the role of an MP unstimulating? A dilletante? A flake? A self-serving ambition-driven shell? Well, today you call him the Prime Minister.

Thanks, Barry.

Haven't the Bee Gees done enough to wreck music already? Now, this?

On private schools and "tax breaks"

Today, the Sun has a fairly good article by Joan Bryden under a ridiculous headline. You can find it here. Here's the jist of the story: in the past when parents receive scholarships to reduce the private school tuition of their children they also had to count that scholarship as income. So, despite also paying property taxes and provincial taxes, these parents also had to pay taxes on money which never actually passed through their wallet. The federal government decided to stop taxing these scholarships in this year's budget (just as they decided to stop taxing my university scholarships in last year's, though the subject of Mr. Flaherty buying me a motorcycle is for another post).

Now, the Liberals think this is unfair. Gerard Kennedy is calling it the subsidy of private schools or something like that. And Ted over at Cerberus, who in my mind is the best Liberal blogger, is also all over this. Is this really a battle the Liberals want to fight? They want to stand for taking more money from parents who want the best education for their kids and are willing to pay for it in addition to paying taxes for schools they don't use? Oh, did I forget to mention that Kennedy also informed us that this measure is meant to appeal to the party's "social conservative base"? What say the experts? I'll leave it to Alex Usher: ""If it's speaking to their base, it's speaking in semaphore with postage-sized flags."

I just don't understand some of the battles this party is trying to fight.

Une petite question, version 112

I agree with Wells, Coyne, Cherniak, the lot. Calling Stephane Dion a vendu is really cheap. It's an insult that some folks here in Quebec like to use for those who stand up for Canada and for the reality that Quebecers are better off in the federation. In the case of Mr. Dion, it's usually been deployed against him after he has exhausted separatist/sovereignist logic. It's been used against him often, so I can't imagine he gets too hurt by it now. His skin is pretty thick. But still, he certainly doesn't deserve it.

But let's run with the argument that it is an unforgivable insult. What say backers of former Prime Minister Paul Martin, whose campaign deployed it against Chretien in 1990? If he can be forgiven for it, why not Harper?

A good question.

The Globe and Mail's Jeff Shallot raised a great question on CTV's Question Period this morning. Why, when the government has made so much of greater citizen input on judicial appointment committees do they not have a single civilian on the search committee to find a new RCMP commissioner? (The committee, if I recall, is composed of a former RCMP commissioner, the PM's security advisor, and two former Supreme Court Justices. All qualifed people, I should like to say).

I, for one, do not have strong objections to the Conservatives' method for judicial appointments. Especially when judicial appointments have hardly been non-partisan in the past. But, why not extend the principal of greater citizen involvement to the RCMP? Especially when the top brass of the RCMP are bringing themselves into such disrepute? And especially when the RCMP has no civilian oversight as it now stands. This seems like a great beachhead to take in the reform of the organization.