Off to the dustbins of history with you my little apparatchiks….

Is there some contest to see how silly a complaint Canada’s human-rights commissions will try to take seriously, asks the Montreal Gazette.    But hey, when all of the world’s problems can be distilled down to whether the state can enforce comedy, or whether restaurants must simultaneously comply with sanitation codes yet reserve the ‘right’ for  employees to decide as they see fit to wash their hands, how much sillier can it get?   Quite a bit more apparently.   The problem, of course is that for the victim – and I mean the poor sap dragged through the process – it isn’t silly.  It is often downright Kafkaesque; arbitrary, vicious and entirely an affront to common law. 

Time to see off these cheerless, soulless, fun crushing taxpayer-funded parasitical ‘offices’.  Write to your MP (and MLA’s for the provincial counterparts) and demand that Canada’s Human Rights Commission be shuttered and their commissars put out to pasture.

Big Numbers

In light of our ‘fiscally responsible’ ‘onservative government shovelling money out the door for various infrastructure projects, the failure of McGinty’s ehealth ontario initiative, and of course the impending cornucopia of largess known as Obamacare being offered up in the USA, it is worth re-reading Guns, Fraud, and Big Numbers in Canada to remind ourselves of just how often our political masters screw up basic math:

 The following essay won the Letter of the Week award on 2004-02-24 at Mark Steyn’s web site, http://www.marksteyn.com . In honour thereof, Mr. Steyn graciously sent me a copy of his “The Face of the Tiger”, autographed: “Congratulations. A Great Letter.” ]

My Fellow Canadian ~

I once read an excellent Isaac Asimov non-fiction essay on really big numbers. Humans are in general really bad at understanding big numbers. Because of my math / science / engineering background, I’m maybe a bit better than average, but I’m no Asimov. I have though learned a few ways to help me better understand big numbers, so that I can better deal with them when I need to. This essay shows how some of those methods work.

The initial Government of Canada estimate for the gun registry database system was $1 million. Technically, I think that’s probably a bit low. Based on my on three decades of work in the field of distributed multi-user database transaction processing systems like the registry, and on some systems I’m currently working on which are of that type, I think $3 million would have been a better estimate.

If someone from the Government of Canada can provide me with a simple accounting showing some component of the system that I’ve missed, I’d be more than happy to adjust my analysis of the situation to take that data into account. My current analysis is based on the numbers I have collected from the public media over the last few years.

Given how important it is for state monopolies to serve citizens to the highest possible ethical standard, let’s throw in a factor of three-ish over my base estimate and call it $10 million, to be as careful as possible.

Now, say you had such a $10 million contract with some customers. And then, say you spent three times that: $30 million. Does it occur to you that your customers (in this case, we citizens) might be, oh, shall we say, somewhat angry? Ok, let’s say it’s another factor of three: $90 million. How are your customers doing now? Fine. Let’s throw in another factor of three, so we’re now up to $270 million. How angry are your customers now? In more primitive times than we live in, would you still be alive? But wait, there’s more. How much would we pay for another factor of three? Oh, about $810 million. Say, that’s interesting, the gun registry database system has, according to the CBC, cost $750 million.

It didn’t cost 3 times as much. Or 3 times 3 times as much. Or 3 times 3 times 3 times as much. It cost 3 times 3 times 3 times 3 times as much.

no taxation without representation

Copenhagen:  The imposition of the largest tax grab on the western economies by unelected, unaccountable and undemocratic forces:

_______________

By Václav Klaus

Many thanks for the invitation and for the courage to organize such an important gathering in the moment when political correctness tells you not to do it.

We are meeting one month before the Climate Change Copenhagen Summit and several weeks before the U.S. Senate hearing regarding the cap-and-trade scheme. For these reasons, today’s meeting can’t be an academic conference, even though the topic still needs academic discussion. There is no consensus — neither in science, nor in economic analysis or politics.

I have already been at a UN Summit in Copenhagen before. It was in 1995 at the so-called Social Summit. At that time, the Summit was attended by then U.S. Vice President Al Gore who — so it seems — will be there again this year. I did also attend, as Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, but I don’t plan to go there now. I don’t see any chance to influence the results or to be listened to.

and in circus news, obama snags the big prize

Oct 12 2009:

-8.   Oops – that didn’t work at all…..

…today is the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Obama. The award seems to have had little impact on public opinion among likely voters.  His total approval was at 49% just before the award was announced and it is at 49% today.

There does seem to be a slight increase in intensity.  Since the prize was awarded, the number who Strongly Approve of the President’s performance has increased by three percentage points and the number who Strongly Disapprove has increased by five. The number with strong opinions on both sides is at the highest level in a month.

While the award has had little impact on the President’s ratings, skepticism about the Nobel selection process has grown. Fifty-eight percent (58%) now see politics in the process, up from 40% a year ago.

And the previous awards to Yasser Arafat, Jimmeh and the Goracle were entirely free of ‘politics in the process’?

—————–

Oct 11 2009: 

Update:  His One-ness has just been awarded the 2010 Stanley Cup – That was easy.

——————

Oct 10 2009:  

Now that Obama has been awarded* the Nobel Peace Trinket,  the mc-chimpy bushitlers must be gnashing their tooth into dust.   Barely 10 days in office** and the committee had their man.   Apparently, simply saying that you are going to heal the world and keep on saying it often and loudly until enough fools believe you was sufficient to be awarded the bauble.   Mind you, it’s not as if he has actually closed down gitmo, or withdrawn troops from Iraq, prevented the dinner jacket from acheiving his nuclear desires, solved world hunger, secured the olympics for the mob, or delivered socialised health care to the peasants – but hey, IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE….

I suppose even those who do persist in resisting the one could be forgiven their skepticism. After all, even mr hope-n-change has adopted the distinctly warlike habit of dropping the odd PEACEFIRE missile or two on occasion.

In the meantime the ungrateful and unwashed hordes have not rewarded*** his one-ness with a deserved bounce in the polls.  What does a man have to do to get some love?

Of course, junior, as a world renowned ‘hater’, ‘disbeliever’, AGW denier and all round obamaskeptic would be expected to sneer; (he has also been known to offer unguarded applause when well deserving targets are scattered into environmentally friendly and biodegradable bits), so in the interests of balance please let me offer my congratulations via Iowahawk:

Dear   BARACK OBAMA  :

Congratulations! On behalf of the selection committee, I am pleased to announce that you have been named a 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of your tireless efforts to   STRENGTHEN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND COOPERATION    .

I am also pleased to tell you that as a winner, you have been pre-approved for membership in the Nobel Peace Player’s Club, offering exclusive money-saving benefits available only to laureates like you. Please take a few minutes to look over the enclosed enrollment materials. At only $299.95 per year, I’m sure you’ll agree that membership is a bargain at twice the price! Here are just some of the benefits you’ll receive:

• A handsome 14-karat gold membership crest badge to display proudly on the grille of your limousine or official state aircraft
• A framed, hand-calligraphed certificate (add $19.95 for gold leaf)
• Special discount shopping bargains for for you and your family
• Great travel packages to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro
• Listing in “Who’s Who of Global Salvation” ($49.95 per copy)
• Great coupons for Olive Garden, P.F. Chang’s, Six Flags Theme Parks, and more!

Plus, you’ll receive the exclusive Nobel Peace Player’s Club GoldCard entitling you to discount air travel and 5-star hotel accommodations from Kyoto to Darfur. But don’t take our word for it! Listen to these testimonials from some of our current members:

“My career as an international peace activist means lots of air travel — and dealing with pushy Zionists and rude natives. With my Nobel Peace Player’s Club GoldCard, I finally get the respect I deserve – and it makes getting through Gaza airport security a snap!”
– Jimmy Carter, 2002 Laureate

RTWT

——————————–

*Advice to Norwegian Nobel Committee – Stop huffing the North Sea gasoline, you’ll find it makes appreciation of the situation a little clearer….like how about the succesful candidate actually having achieved something other than simply being elected.

**Nobel nominations deadline: 1 Feb 2009.  Inauguration 21 Jan 2009.

*** To be fair, lets wait until next week to see if any of his aura has transferred to the proles.

changeometer

presidential approval index sept 14 2009

While I might like to beat a man when he’s down as much as the next guy, might there be a second life for obamacare yet?   A seven point improvement since the last time we checked….

He wouldn’t be the first politician to suck back, reload and wait for the polls to improve before launching the next round of marketing….

gubmint motors (your tax dollars at work)

Well, well.   I think that 16% ownership stake in General Motors is going to take a little while longer to ‘pay off’.    Sales volume at the General is off by 20% from the same period last year as folks continue to shun the ‘pelosi mobiles’, while sales volume at Ford (which in case you need reminding – didn’t require a bailout) are up by 16%.    Great pick Dalton and Stephen.  I, for one am happy I picked up FoMoCo at $1.22 in December 2008.

ht 

Brands and companies are both displayed in descending order according to their percentage change in volume sales. There were 26 selling days in August 2009 and 27 selling days in August 2008, so the change in monthly sales volume will be different than the change in the average daily sales rate for each brand/company.

Brand	Volume %	8/09	8/08	DSR*%	DSR 8/09	DSR 8/08
Kia	60.38	40,198	25,065	66.54	1,546	928
Subaru	51.51	28,683	18,932	57.33	1,103	701
Hyundai	47.01	60,467	41,130	52.67	2,326	1,523
Audi	25.77	8,057	6,406	30.61	310	237
Volvo	24.78	5,826	4,669	29.58	224	173
Pontiac	23.35	29,921	24,257	28.09	1,151	898
Ford	21.25	161,369	133,088	25.91	6,207	4,929
Honda	15.21	151,814	131,766	19.65	5,839	4,880
Mazda	12.09	26,542	23,680	16.40	1,021	877
Volkswagen	11.35	24,823	22,292	15.64	955	826
Toyota	10.94	202,196	182,252	15.21	7,777	6,750
Porsche	8.69	1,526	1,404	12.87	59	52
Mercury	8.19	9,080	8,393	12.35	349	311
Nissan	0.17	97,580	97,417	4.02	3,753	3,608
Suzuki	-5.46	5,749	6,081	-1.82	221	225
Jeep	-6.11	22,041	23,476	-2.50	848	869
Mini	-6.55	5,111	5,469	-2.95	197	203
Mercedes-Benz	-7.54	17,112	18,507	-3.98	658	685
Chevrolet	-9.16	168,130	185,080	-5.66	6,467	6,855
Dodge	-15.80	52,562	62,422	-12.56	2,022	2,312
BMW Group	-21.30	24,343	30,931	-18.27	936	1,146
Lexus	-21.82	22,892	29,281	-18.81	880	1,084
Chrysler	-23.50	18,619	24,337	-20.55	716	901
BMW	-24.47	19,232	25,462	-21.56	740	943
Mitsubishi	-25.95	6,813	9,200	-23.10	262	341
Infiniti	-30.19	7,732	11,076	-27.51	297	410
Acura	-36.21	9,625	15,089	-33.76	370	559
Lincoln	-38.43	5,874	9,540	-36.06	226	353
Smart	-44.59	1,418	2,559	-42.46	55	95
GMC	-45.15	23,145	42,194	-43.04	890	1,563
Buick	-51.71	8,612	17,833	-49.85	331	660
Cadillac	-55.01	6,931	15,405	-53.28	267	571
Saturn	-58.41	8,479	20,385	-56.81	326	755
Hummer	-64.03	777	2,160	-62.64	30	80
Saab	-67.80	484	1,503	-66.56	19	56
COMPANIES
Ford Motor Company	16.99	182,149	155,690	21.49	7006	5766
American Honda	9.93	161,439	146,855	14.16	6209	5439
Toyota Mo Co	6.41	225,088	211,533	10.50	8657	7835
Nissan North America	-2.93	105,312	108,493	0.80	4050	4018
Chrysler Group LLC	-15.43	93,222	110,235	-12.18	3585	4083
General Motors	-20.19	246,479	308,817	-17.12	9480	11438

no one to blame but themselves

Updated – Aug 28 2009:

Oops.  Either it’s time to buy newspaper stock on the theory that it can’t get much worse, or maybe its all over.

Newspapers’ financial woes worsened in the second quarter as advertising sales shrank by 29 percent, leaving publishers with $2.8 billion less revenue than they had at the same time last year.

It’s the deepest downturn yet during a three-year free fall in advertising revenue — newspapers’ main source of income. The magnitude of the industry’s advertising losses have intensified in each of the last 12 quarters.

The numbers released Thursday by the Newspaper Association of America weren’t a shock, given the dramatic erosion mirrored the advertising losses that the largest U.S. newspaper publishers already had reported for the April-June period.

Still, the statistics served as a stark reminder of the crisis facing newspapers as they try to cope with a brutal recession and advertising trends that have shifted more marketing dollars to the Internet.

___________

Aug 21 2009:

As far as I am concerned the parochial print and TV news media can’t die off fast enough.  Recently a couple of news items have highlighted for me exactly why journalists are out of touch with the real world – a complete lack of professionalism, disregard for fact checking and suppression of news:

First off:  last week much of the shrieking on both left and right concerned a black man who attended a Health Care

crazy?

 rally in Arizona openly carrying an AR-15 rifle, and pistol holstered at his hip.  All legal, no threatening gestures made towards anyone in the crowd or anyone else for that matter.   In fact judging by the demeanor of those around him, they certainly didn’t perceive him to be a threat least of all to themselves.    CNN posts:” Obama at risk from gun-toting protesters?”  MSNBC then aired cropped video  footage of the same man yet cast him as a white man (36 seconds in), while the talking heads go on about how racist angry protesters might take a shot at Obama. 

not crazy? never happened?

Apparently the MSM’s memory hole has obliterated any recollection of  the New Black Panthers openly sporting shotguns at the 2000 Republican Convention in Houston TX.   Where was the concerned pontificating about crazy militias (isn’t that what the Black Panthers are?) endangering the safety of GW?  What?  There wasn’t any?   In last weeks ’reporting’  there wasn’t even a semblance of impartiality – no mention of similar events – as if the armed protests by the (presumably liberal) Black Panthers had never occurred.    

Matt Welch at Reason Online summarises what is happening…..

Meanwhile, I can predict the kind of “hate” that will escape attention by the new desk. It’s the kind that assumes, lack of evidence notwithstanding, that we are always–but especially now that liberal Democrats run the country–on the verge of a race war. It’s the kind that takes a surface look at current events, luxuriates in historically ignorant alarmism, then proclaims that America itself is “delusional,” “irrational,” “hysterical.” You can’t get away with hating a (Democratic) president’s policies, or even a single policy, but hating on the country as a whole for failing to get on board? Well, that’s just journalism!

Secondly:  The sound of insects chirping as the MSM with the notable exception of the Wall Street Journal suppresses or at best ignores a ‘good news’ story coming out of the west bank via the International Monetary Fund.  It would seem that Palestinians living in the West Bank have won the economic lottery (real wage increases of up to 24% [!] and economic growth of 7%), whilst those lobbing rockets from the Gaza strip have not.  Or is it perhaps because security measures put in place by the Israeli’s have put an end to suicide bombers originating in the West Bank, coupled with a desire by Palestinians to get on with their lives, leaving the wreckage which is Gaza to the fascist Hamas?   Hmm….

I smell a rodent of unusual size….

not the change you were hoping for…

Hmm.. again with the squiggly green line going in the wrong direction…..

signs of common sense?

Australian Senate defeats a cap and trade bill 42-30.  Ian Plimer, almost soley responsible for changing the debate from the ‘science is settled’, to one of common sense – at least in Australia.    The tone deaf climate warming alarmist cheerleaders won’t likely change their tune here in Canada. 

Some money quotes:

“Climatology suffers from the same fads, fashions, dictators, and fraud that other fields of endeavor enjoy. In order to be funded well, climatology needs to be fashionable, and it is. The fundamental causes have been known for a long time, but predictions are only based on computer models that have very incomplete input. The IPCC models of 1990 and 1995 did not predict the 1998 El Nino nor the 21st-century cooling. So how can we use these to predict climate a century in advance?… The models have been spectacularly wrong, yet they are still used with no humility….

“Environmentalism has many of the hallmarks of failed European socialism and Western (failed) Christianity. It has a holy book which few have read (IPCC reports), has prophets (Gore) who cannot be challenged, relies on dogma, ignores contrary evidence, has armies of wide-eyed missionaries…; imposes guilt, has a catastrophist view of the planet, and seeks indulgences.”

savage compassion – or what’s wrong with progressives

Quite a few self identified leftists are distancing themselves from the recent and disgusting habit of many of their more ‘progressive’ brethren of aligning themselves alongside the islamosfacists.   Most notably Bernard-Henri Levy  (identifying reflexive anti-Americanism as only one of the hatreds at the heart of the new left) and Nick Cohen (describing his disappointment with the apologists of islamic terror);  and now Yacov Ben Moshe has produced a short essay which summarises most eloquently the reasons why, while I often feel that I hold classically liberal values, I cannot under any circumstances find common cause with the progressives amongst us:  

Savage Compassion:

The progressive demands that we believe his claim that he serves a higher truth and a loftier goal.  He tries to force us to accept the idea that his ideas are unassailably good. And, even if they fail to be good, his virtuous pretentions are supposed to indemnify him from guilt or shame.  Even if he make mistakes, behaves badly or cause harm, virtue will save him from blame.  His “caring and good intentions” are supposed to trump the fact that he cares about the wrong things in the wrong way and his intentions are a humbug. Virtue is more than a sham- it is the prim, ruthless face of coercion. It is aimed outward, at others, as a self-justification; an accusation and, above all, a yearning for Utopia.

 

Utopia is an attack on the individual.  There has never been a Utopia that could survive for long without crushing the individual.  That is why “selflessness” is considered a key element of virtue.  Hannah Arendt foresaw the destructiveness of progressive virtue many years ago.  In her work On Revolution she wrote:

“Virtue has indeed been equated with selflessness ever since Robespierre preached a virtue that was borrowed from Rousseau, and it is the equation which has put, as it were, its indelible stamp on the revolutionary man and his innermost conviction that the value of a policy may be gauged by the extent to which it will contradict all particular interests, and that the value of a man may be judged by the extent to which he acts against his own interest and against his own will.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

RTWT

best sentence(s) I read today

I don’t normally care too much about what goes on under the congressional approvals process of administration appointments – I don’t have a dog in the fight as they say.  However lately all you see on the news (esp here in KC) is hand-wringing about the prospective US supreme court nominee…

There’s a charade going on in Washington. After people finish playing it, an accomplished lawyer and jurist will be appointed to the highest court of the land. Being accomplished won’t be the sole reason for her appointment. Accomplished people abound in America. If appeal court judge Sonia Sotomayor is elevated to the U.S. Supreme Court, it will be because of her flaws as much as her virtues.

Judge Sotomayor will get the nod because (a) she’s a Hispanic woman, (b) she believes that being a Hispanic woman makes her more qualified to judge matters than people who aren’t Hispanic women, and (c) she’s prepared to deny under oath that she believes what she believes….

RTWT

is there nothing obama can’t do?

…of course 5FF has it….

…whilst junior shamelessly rips off SDA headlines….

things you won’t read about in the MSM

Update: June 17 2009:

From the comments – good catch Gordo.  At least the National Post has a Bloomsbury item on this non-news event.

______________

Update: June 16 2009:

This is very significant news, because, as Michael Barnett writes in an email, one of the following must be true:

1. The Japanese are trying to secretly divest themselves of about 25% of their US debt. (They own about $600B in US debt.)

2. The Japanese are acting as Chinese or North Korean agents in trying to help them divest themselves of US debt in secret.

3. There is an enormous sum of counterfeit US debt out there and these guys are trying to sell some of it.

None of these cases bodes well for the US debt market.

__________

June 14 2009:

So, apparently two Japanese nationals were apprehended at the Italian / Swiss border carrying $134 Billion in US Treasury bearer bonds.   

1 3 4 Billion….Kind of blows the doors off the tired customs dude asking whether you are carrying $10K doesn’t it? 

At any rate, you might think that two people carrying the equivalent of 1/4 of the entire Canadian debt might rate a front page mention in more than a couple of our intrepid journals, and yet – mysteriously quiet.  [sound of crickets].   For instance, if you or I were to have in our possession the equivalent to the entire GDP of several african nations, and we were caught at a border with it, maybe the local, nay the international press might be interested.  If they’re fake it’s a story.  If the bearer bonds are real, its also a story!  

Go here to read some analysis… Its weird, but then again….

yet another ‘industry’ ripe for an OBailout

Its a good news bad news sort of story – of free spending big labour suddenly falling on hard times following substantial spending during the 2008 US presidential elections.  Coincidentally the new administration slashes funding to the very department charged with enforcing disclosure of union election spending.   

The WSJ carries a story today [print edition - europe]  about the hard times which have befallen two large Union organisations, the SEIU and AFL-CIO.  According to the story, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ..”spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama“, but sadly have found themselves indebted to the tune of $2.3mil.  Meanwhile the AFL-CIO carries liabilities ‘equal to more than 80% of its $189mil (!) in assets. 

I tried to hold back the tears, but was laughing too hard.

famous last words….

 …”Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he’s confident General Motors Corp. will turn its financial troubles around and pay the province back billions of dollars that were given to the company to ensure the success of its restructuring plan.  “We’ve really pushed them up against the wall in terms of the conditions we’ve exacted,” he told a scrum of reporters at Queen’s Park“….

So this would be after GM somehow obtains profits from a new stable of small cars (which have historically had razor thin profit margins) whilst simultaneously attempting to meet politically motivated environmental policies handed down from the white house and protecting CAW jobs and benefits?    I wait with bated breath…..

Nothing to see here folks – move along, move along….