Jeff Flake on the Bailout

I also got this from the Western Standard and it is also awesome;




My favourite quote from Jeff Flake, "Those who believe that they can control and direct the market's invisible hand, will eventually be slapped by it."

Ron Paul on the Bailout

I got this from the Western Standard;



Everywhere I look people are blaming the free market system. I'm glad that someone is standing up and pointing out that you can't blame the free market because there is no free market in the United States.

Tax Cuts > Tax Credits

I get that the electoral strategy is to appeal to middle class families, but can we just stop with all the random giveaways? The tax code is complicated enough, we don't need any more tax credits for daily activities of certain voting blocks. Instead of all these random tax credits (which are government spending, they are absolutely not tax cuts), why can't the Conservative Party just say they will reduce a tax rate or two? I'm still holding out some hope for whenever the final platform is released.

Yet another "stop Harper" website

If you haven't had enough of people talking about vote splitting and strategic voting, here is another website for you. Vote for Environment.

The idea is exactly the same as other such groups. They identify certain ridings and tell you who you should vote for if you want to stop the Conservatives from winning. They claim that with their guiding hand they can achieve a Liberal minority government, or perhaps a Liberal-NDP coalition government (it would be the first coalition government in Canadian history).

To understand their tactics more I looked into their methodology.

The provincial average for any party on election day 2006 resulted in a certain number of votes for that party in any given riding -- and a defined ratio of provincial average support to votes in a riding. That ratio is applied to an average of polling results for this election to calculate the number of votes the current support level would result in for a given party.

Of course this assumes the quality of candidates and the overall situation in each riding is the same -- which is not always the case. In some ridings the situation changes dramatically, shifting that ridings relationship of votes compared to the provincial average. To account for this the site applies corrections where, for instance, one party is not running a candidate.

There are worst ways to do seat predictions. This way isn't perfect but no method would be perfect. The devil, however, is in the details.

I looked into what ridings they were targeting as their picks. The one that caught my eye was Central-Nova, the great (or not so great) battle between Peter Mackay and Lizzy May. This is what they had to say about the fact that there was no Liberal candidate;

Because the Liberals have not fielded a Candidate in deference to Elizabeth May we have apportioned the Liberal vote as following: Con 8.0% NDP 3.0% Green 58.0% Stay Home 31.0%

58%? How the hell did they figure that? Are they just making numbers up at random? Try as I might to find one, there was no explanation for this conclusion. The only thing I could find was this disclaimer;

These corrections are completely transparent and if you don't agree with them they are easy for you to reset for yourself.

How can I disagree? I have no idea where you got your premises. How can I agree when I am left to assume you pulled them out of your ass? How are any of your numbers reliable when you adjust them to fit whatever way you want them to?

Not that it would make a difference even if they had a strategic concept that actually worked. Strategic voting is the practice of the fool who thinks himself savvy and yet hasn't realized his vote is only one in tens of thousands.

Vote for whatever party you wish to have more power. You have but one voice in the process, do not throw it away trying to be clever.

Dionomics is like magic

I got this off a TeamBC.ca (Is this official party website on the Libloggers? I guess the OPCCA website was on Bloggingtories so that's fair.)



I love the implicit assumption that government creates jobs. As if any government could wave a magic wand and declare the 'green' industry to be a success. Really what Dion is proposing here is another collection of corporations that can only survive with government help (if they could survive on their own they would already exist). Way to stick it to the little man and help big business there Dion.

I also like the implied threat against one of Canada's most profitable industry. That's Dionomics, destroy the profitable industries that already exist and use them to create new industries with tax dollars.

Endorsing Dion for Leader of the Opposition

There are a lot of Conservatives out there that are ribbing their chins in glee at the idea of the Liberals becoming a third place party. I'd rather groan in agony at the thought of the NDP becoming the official opposition. Why should it matter? If the NDP are the second party, chances are that the Conservatives have a majority government, the opposition can whistle to the wind after that, right?

People underestimate the power of the official opposition. They have power not in what they can do but in what they attack. Few would deny that Manning had an influence on Chretien's policies. Governments usually design their policy in a way that makes it difficult to attack. By doing so they often reach into the middle ground between the parties, and sometimes they reverse long standing policies to preempt an attack. Do you really want to see the NDP getting even this much influence?

The leader of the second party can set the tone of the debate in numerous ways. Most importantly, the leader of the second party can bring up issues and get more attention than the leaders of the smaller parties. What sort of issues will Jack Layton bring into federal politics? Higher corporate taxes and proportional representation are not things I want to see Parliament debating. With a Liberal official opposition it is not likely that these things will be seriously talked about. With a NDP official opposition they are almost certainly going to be issues.

The bottom line, be careful what you wish for.

Olivia Chow: A strong record of getting nothing done

I have the misfortune of being represented by Olivia Chow in the great Parliament of Canada. Part of what makes this unfortunate is that I am, from time to time, subjected to her political literature. I received a particular asinine piece just the other day.

It begins;

I’ve loved being your MP...

That’s nice, it’s always good to hear that someone enjoys their job but why should I care? Oh there’s more;

...because serving our community gives me the opportunity to help people...

What else could serving someone be but helping them? Basically you are saying doing something gives you the opportunity to do that thing. Again why should I care?

...and to get results for Toronto. Together we can make great things happen.

Now we’re getting somewhere! Okay you get results for me and my community by not only serving us but helping us too! Can you give me a concrete example?

Wrote ‘Canada’s Early Learning and Child Care Act’ and led it through two successful votes in Parliament.

Umm...It takes three votes in the House of Commons for something to be passed. That means you didn’t get it done, you almost got it done, which means you didn’t get it done. Okay so bad example, do you have anything else?

Olivia’s proposal to establish an office to recognize overseas education was implemented by the government.

I’m pretty sure you were not the first one to suggest something like this, nor were you the one to implement it. So what exactly was your accomplishment here? Was it that you thought it was a good idea?

Secured permanent federal funding for the Harbourfront Centre and waterfront revitalization.

I don’t remember her name being connected to any such announcement. I called their campaign office to find out how she was involved. That was two days ago, I’ve yet to hear back from them.

Helped over 1000 people in our community cut red tape and get results.

I’ve worked in an MP’s office. That’s 50% of an MP’s job. If Tony Ianno hadn’t lost he would have been doing the same thing. Not a good reason for someone to vote for Ms. Chow.

Launched the Children’s Health and Nutrition Initiative to fight child poverty and obesity by providing all children access to healthy food.

This isn’t an existing program. It’s something that the NDP has proposed. Is Olivia Chow really claiming a proposed program from the fourth party as an accomplishment?

Worked with Jack Layton to launch a Youth Safety and Crime Prevention Plan which focuses on youth employment and banning handguns in Toronto.

It’s nice that she gets to work with her husband, but again proposing something is not the same thing as doing something.

Consistently opposed the war in Afghanistan and passed a motion to let war resisters in Canada.

If her claim is that she ‘get things done’ then merely opposing something is not good enough. Our troops are still in Afghanistan, what has she accomplished?

After years of fighting for justice for the Chinese Exclusion Act and Head Tax, Olivia helped secure the historic apology.

She’s gone from listing non-accomplishments to outright claiming that she was responsible for what the Conservatives did. I don’t think that this is a good reason to decide your vote, but if this is your reason, you should vote Conservative.

Tabled a motion to regulate pet food in Canada to ensure safety for pets.

Did the motion pass? I’ll say it one last time, almost doing something is not the same thing as doing something.

Okay, that’s all she listed as her supposed accomplishments. Not a very inspiring list. To be fair it is hard for an MP from the fourth party to get their agenda passed, even in a minority Parliament.

Still if your campaign slogan is going to be A strong record of getting things done, you better have a strong record of getting things done. Instead she has a respectable record of trying to get things done. I guess that’s not as good of a slogan. The truth rarely is.

Conservative Protectionism

I don't understand why Harper wants to do this, but he plans on banning the export of raw bitumen to countries that don't conform with Canadian carbon emission standards. In the article I linked to it explains a lot of the implications, but it just amounts to this: this policy is protectionist and bad for Canada.

Dion on Israel

Here Dion clearly has a grasp for international issues.

No shit really?

A study in Wilfrid Laurier University proves that gun owners vote Conservative more than non-gun owners. I guess its good to check these things out, but really? There wasn't something else to look into?

Here are my favorite parts of the National Post article about the study;

Gun owners vote Conservative more often than the rest of the country but are otherwise very similar to other Canadians, a new study suggests.

"People who live in cities like Toronto probably don't know people who own guns, but they are out there," Prof. Kay said.

The study suggests gun owners are slightly wealthier, more likely to live in rural communities and more likely to attend church than people without guns, but the differences between them and other Canadians are quite small. Indeed, the only issue where the views of gun owners differed significantly from nongun owners was gay marriage, which gun owners tended to oppose.

Polls should be taken less seriously

A Liblogger by the name of David Eaves writes about why some polls are so different from each other. Basically the methodology is significantly different between the Nanos poll and the Decima poll.

Methodology is essential when collecting data and I think too few reporters understand it enough to report it to us. Hell I don't understand it either. More and more I wish I had taken a stats course in University.

You can think of polls this way;

Party polls are inspired by a true story.

News outlet polls are based on a true story.

Election day polls are a true story.

(I stole that from somewhere but I don't remember where)

The horse racing that goes on in the media can be fun but it should also be largely ignored. Especially when polls are coming out once every two days. Polls during elections are shaped by the news cycle not by any deep reservoir of conviction.

Quebec gets all the good political ads

Two weeks into the election and I've yet to see a political ad that I think is very compelling. Some of them have been pretty good, but none of them have been breathtaking. None of them has come close to even McCain's attacks on Obama's celebrity status. Then again, I live in Ontario.

I present to you anglophones out there the best ads of the campaign.

This one from the NDP;



You don't need to understand a word of French. You know exactly what this ad is saying. It won't win my vote but I am certain it will win them votes in Montreal. (If anyone can find Hitler in the video you win a prize)

The next one comes from the Conservateurs;



This is not only a powerful ad it is the best attack ad I've ever seen. It rips into the very soul the Bloq's support. It asks who is best to defend Quebec's interests? Well its not the Bloq. Also notice the rural setting. This ad speaks to the pre-quite revolution heart of Quebec. Even after all this time the imagined Quebec of it's people is rural not urban.

I looked for a Liberal ad that I thought was particularly good, but none of them appealed to me. It may be that my French is not subtle enough to get them, but they seemed pretty mediocre.

Stupidity on air

This has nothing to do with politics (at least not directly). It is just one of those stupid little things that make me weep for humanity.

Today as I was waking up I heard a radio commercial. Granted radio commercials are not generally the source of enlightened discourse, but even a low standard is still a standard.

This commercial was offering an award for those that reported pirated software. It was a sort of crime stoppers for the Internet. You can discuss the merits of this but the subject of the commercial is not what was stupid.

It was this line in the commercial; "illegally copied software is illegal."

In other news; large dinosaurs are big.

Think of how many people have reviewed and approved this 15 second spot. Imagine them all looking over it and not thinking, "wow that's kinda dumb. Let's rephrase that slightly to, 'unauthorised copies of software is illegal."

They paid money for this, you'd think they would proof read.

Your Snack Foods are Safe

Whew, without this bust there could have been a major shortage of Doritos in Southern Ontario. What a waste of money.

Dion on the role of government

At the end of this interview with Mike Duffy, Mr. Dion makes a bold claim. He says that Stephen Harper does not understand the role of government. He says that the role of government is to 'help people' in times of downturn. He ties Harper not just to Bush but to Reagan and Hoover as well. The reference to Hoover was particularily interesting. Suggesting that Harper will let the present crisis turn into a full collapse.

The problem with Dion's idea of 'helping people' is that it doesn't actually work that way. Everything the government does is done by force. When the government 'helps people' what they are really doing is taking money from some people and giving it to other people. So to help they must also hurt.

Dion wants to talk about the lessons of the past. Well why can't he learn from the lessons of 50 years of failed Keynsian theory? Why must governments insist that the world can only work if they control everything?

Dion tried to sell himself as a centre-rightist in this interview. His idea of 'helping' reveals him for what he truelly is; in advocate for the expansion of the state.

What the fuck Murdoch?

Last week you stood in front of the media and told them that John Tory should look for another job. I thought that it was a pretty bold move. Perhaps a little late in coming but finally someone in caucus was making a move against John Tory. It turns out you weren’t so much launching a battle to save the party as you were running off at the mouth. Someone commented on my blog that you often sound like a fool. Someone else said that you are a fool, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. It turns out that even that was more credit than you deserved.

The moment that you were suspended and not booted out of caucus I thought John Tory was done for. It was such a pansy ass move that I was sure the other caucus members would smell blood. If they could come out and attack the leader but keep their caucus allowance, there really wasn’t much of a reason not to attack John Tory.

Then nothing; not a single one of your colleagues did anything to support any coup. A couple days later John Tory was convinced that being a nice guy is not always a good thing. He dumped you from caucus and that was the end of it.

I hate to say it but the only people that look more like an ass than you do right now, is the people that jumped on your band wagon. I assumed that if you were going to stab Caesar in the back you would have the intelligence to do more than prick him. Instead you are sitting by yourself, and I doubt anyone would shed a tear.

Don’t get me wrong, I think John Tory came off very badly in all of this. The expulsion is very legitimate, but he took way too long. Even Dion would have given you your walking papers by the next news cycle. He missed the chance to prove his strength.

But the point is that John Tory is still standing and you are not.

So I have to ask you; what the fuck Murdoch? Did you have a plan or were you just bored or something?

Dion's ads suck

In this ad posted by Western Standard;



Dion is trying once again to connect Harper with the unpopular Republicans. By inventing Harpernomics they are reminding us of Reagonomics and by association Bush. This is a little weak since I doubt many remember what Reagonomics is. Besides the ad lacks the symmetry of the original. Where is Dionomics?



Even ignoring the subtext, it annoys the hell out of me whenever he claims the Green Tax Shift will create 'green manufacturing jobs'. What the hell is that? Do we really need another government created industry? If green jobs are wanted than the market will create them.

This ad is so close to being good it makes me want to cry;



The ending is the only good part of the ad. Dion actually looks tough and strong at the end there. This message, however, is undercut by the rest of the video. The showing of Dion's caucus is basically saying, "Don't worry I have all these people to help me govern." A strong leader doesn't need to worry about people worrying about him being in charge. So a bit of a mix message there.

Plus as my friend Peter pointed out, the clapping is really annoying.

WSJ: Taxes and Income

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting...richer. Anyone want to toast low taxes now?

Murdoch a hero?

This CP article is a little unclear what happened. You do get the impression that Murdoch was at the very least greeted with enthusiasm by the rural voters (also known as the Tory base). It's been claimed that there is a rural/urban split between supporters/non-supporters of John Tory's continued leadership. That is to say, he stayed at the helm thanks to Toronto. I've also heard John Tory say that this claim does not hold water to the actual numbers. Since delegated conventions are almost impossible to decode, either interpretation may be true. (both sides would have different lists of 'yes' and 'no' delegates)

I will, however, give you my anecdotal observations that wherever the party is electorally strongest is where support for John Tory is weakest. For example, at a plowing match.

*Update*

According to the 680 News listener poll;

Unable to find a seat in the Ontario legislature, is it time for Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory to find a new job? 79% yes, 21% no.

Obviously not a scientific poll, but still interesting that the response was so overwhelming. I wish I knew the demographics and voting patterns of the 680 audience.

Suspended Murdoch greeted with cheers, Tory with some jeers, at plowing match

5 hours ago

TEESWATER, Ont. — Suspended Progressive Conservative Bill Murdoch received cheers and hugs Tuesday at the International Plowing Match in southwestern Ontario while embattled party leader John Tory was greeted with occasional taunts of "leave Murdoch alone."

Tory suspended Murdoch from the caucus last week after the outspoken party veteran said it was time Tory considered other job options.

Murdoch wasn't invited on the Conservative float with 10 of the 25 other caucus members for the opening parade at the huge rural fair and exhibition, so he rode alone on a donated fire truck and was cheered as the "voice of the people" by some rural supporters.

"I'm almost humbled by the amount of people that have stopped, jumped off their tractors, come over and (gave) me a hug and everything," a beaming Murdoch told reporters.

"A lot of people think I'm suffering; I'm okay. I'm used to being on my own a lot, so I'm fine."

In contrast, Tory's float was greeted with cries of "leave Murdoch alone" and "back off Murdoch."

The party leader said he only heard one such comment.

"One person said that. Lots of other people said "Where's Bill?" in a very lighthearted way, and we pointed back to where he was in a lighthearted way," said Tory.

"I can assure you there were lots and lots of people - as my colleagues would attest to - calling out encouragement to us and to me as well; not about Bill Murdoch, just about what we're trying to do."

Members of the Liberal government caucus chanted Murdoch's name as they invited him up on their float before the parade to pose for pictures, although Premier Dalton McGuinty discreetly stayed off the float until the rouge Conservative had gone back to his fire truck.

Murdoch may indeed be very popular, but "even popular people... have to abide by a certain set of rules," said Tory.

"I met a man this morning who told me he works at a co-op and he said if he was out dissing his general manager in the newspapers he'd lose his job."

But Crystal Taylor, a Blyth resident and president of the Blyth Legion, said she didn't think Murdoch's suspension was fair, and was standing by him.

"He calls a spade a spade and that's what we need," she said.

"If we had a few more of those we'd be a lot better. There's a lot of people who tell us one thing and do another, but he does what he says he's going to do."

Murdoch agreed to meet with Tory and the entire caucus sometime next week, but said he wouldn't back down from saying the party needs a new leader.

"No, I haven't changed my mind on anything yet," he said.

"I didn't actually say John should resign. I did say if a good job comes along he might want to take it - you can construe that anyway you want - but it wasn't 'you've got to resign.'

"It's just if another job comes along, that the Blue Jays want him, then he should go there."

There have been rumours that Tory, who once ran the Canadian Football League, was being considered for a top job with Toronto's major league baseball franchise.

Murdoch said he had lost faith in Tory's leadership and was pinning his hopes on some of the other Conservative caucus members speaking up on his behalf.

"There's more than the henchmen that John (Tory) appointed, the four henchmen that he put in there and they want me out of there," he said.

"There's a lot more in caucus and, if they have a right to have a say, some may not appreciate what's going on."

The 18-year veteran member from Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound said he knew some caucus members were on his side because his suspension last week was actually a firing at first.

"I must have (had some support in caucus) because at eight o'clock I was fired and at 12 o'clock I was suspended," he said.

Murdoch said he's prepared to sit as an independent member of the legislature if necessary, but assumed his seat would still be with the rest of the Conservative caucus when members return to the provincial legislature next Monday for the fall session.

Free Speech and Canadian elections

A while ago a civil servant working for the Human ‘Rights’ Commission claimed that free speech was not a Canadian value. I wasn’t surprised to learn that those that head the HRC have no legal background. Or at least I assume that they don’t, otherwise they would have known this section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

There it is my fellow Canadians. The Canadian leviathan has promised to protect our rights to speech. As flawed of a document you may think the charter is (and I do), it is nice to have this promise written down somewhere. Of course there is always this;

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Now we have a problem. What can we call a reasonable limit? The Supreme Court has developed a formula for deciding these things, but it’s not a science. Besides studying case law makes for a poor philosophical pursuit, so we won’t rely on those nine people in silly outfits, and ask ourselves this important question;

Is any limit to free speech reasonable?

I mentioned the HRC at the top of this post. They have been attacked for a while now as the primary threat to free speech in this country. That may be so but they are not the only threat. Other threats are readily apparent during an election.

I am not, nor is any of you, allowed to buy television time to endorse a political party or a candidate. This means that I cannot enter into a contract with a willing partner to freely express my opinion to the audience of my choice. On the face of it this would violate Section 2b, but apparently it doesn’t. This law has been deemed reasonable.

I cannot tell someone living on the west coast which of my fellow citizens will be making my laws until those westerners are done voting. I and the media are not free to express an opinion of those newly minted MPs until the state gives us permission. This again has been deemed reasonable.

Why are these restrictions reasonable? The excuse given for the latter restriction is that if not in place it may affect the outcome of the election. So to be clear, we are not allowed to do these things because we may influence people. Does that seem like a reasonable limit to you?

The former restriction is in place to avoid political parties using arm length groups to attack each other. Is this really enough of a reason to restrict speech? To stop a political tactic that some think is unsavoury? Personally I’m always a little annoyed when a politician talks about their home life in an election. Should we have the Supreme Court ban that too? Does this seem like a reasonable limit to you?

Free speech is a Canadian value. It has been since the days of LaFontaine and Baldwin. Sometimes we simply can’t rely on the leviathan to protect it for us.

EI to be a Bigger Tax Grab?

After I wrote my last post, anonymouscoward posted this article from the CBC in the comment section. Apparently the EI program isn’t just limited to maternity benefits, but the self-employed can also opt-in the all of EI benefits. My last post still holds true as a downfall of this policy, but now I have an even bigger issue with it. By the principles of insurance, this breaks both rules 1, A large number of homogeneous exposure units, and 3, Accidental Loss.

Here is how it is breaking these rules:

Rule 1: The exposure units would not be homogeneous if self-employed people can opt-in. When every single employee has to pay into the program, you can argue that EI is reasonably homogeneous. Obviously some people are at more risk to lose their jobs than others depending on many factors, but that is generally controlled by law of large numbers. However, when you add in only the self-employed people that opt-in you are adding proportionally riskier individuals into the pool. Owners of businesses will generally have a pretty good idea of their financial status. The ones least likely to go out of business are the ones that are least likely to opt-in. The converse is also true. The result of this is insurance pool is now riskier and will have more claims per people, raising the EI premiums for employees.

Rule 3: The loss that self-employed people does not strictly count as accidental. I agree with what anonymouscoward in the comments of the last post, “No self-employed person will fire themselves to get 55% of their salary for up to 45 weeks.” Obviously a business that is running smoothly probably wouldn’t do this. However, in a family business for example, the employees may not currently count for EI due to not being at arms-length from the owner. So if you have a seasonal business that has a downturn during the winter and employ 4 of your children, probably all 4 of them work through the winter even though 3 of them could probably make due. However, with the opt-in system, you can just have one of them pay into the EI for 6 months prior to winter and alternate a different one to let go each winter and hire back for the summer. This is obviously just an hypothetical example, but there are many more scenarios you could imagine where the risk for the people opting-in are clearly higher than the risk for the employed people forced into the system.

These basic principles of insurance are not there for purely academic purposes. When they are not followed negative consequences happen. Self-employed people that choose to opt-in, whether for maternity benefits or if they know their business is in a down-turn, clearly have a higher risk than the employees that are forced into the system. EI is already a tax grab, hopefully the Conservatives do not make it worse.

Edit: Raphael Alexander also has a post about this: Oh Goody! More Money For E.I. Nobody Can Collect

You Can't Get Something for Nothing (Unless you are Self-Employed)

Stephen Harper announced today that he plans to provide maternity benefits to the self-employed. Despite what a couple other Blogging Tories think, this is a nonsensical plan.

As CTV reports, this is the basics of the plan:
• participation would be voluntary
• self-employed Canadians would have to sign up for the EI plan six months before making a claim
• details about premium amounts and required post-claim payments would be set when the program is implemented after review by the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board.

So what does this mean? Well if a self-employed women is pregnant, she'll sign up for the EI three months into the pregnancy since they just need to be paying into EI for six months. Self-employed people do not pay into, or benefit from, EI otherwise, so why would anyone sign up more than six months before the baby is born? You may be saying now, "Well ok, but why do self-employed women not deserve this benefit that other Canadian women receive?" Well, because they are not using EI as an insurance plan. In order for something to qualify as insurance, there has to be risk. When a woman is pregnant, there is no risk of having a baby – discounting miscarriages, it is already concluded that she will have a baby.

The result is that a pregnant woman will only voluntarily participate in EI if their EI payments are less than their EI benefits. The difference of their benefits and payments are made up for by every other Canadian worker that is required to pay into EI. This is the only possible outcome here. If the EI payments were greater than the EI benefits, then no self-employed women would sign up for it.

Not that I’m in favour of this, but if you want to create welfare payments to all pregnant women, they should eliminate the current EI funded maternity payments and fund all women out of general revenues (that everyone pays into). It is a much better solution than requiring the rest of us to give handouts to the self-employed.

Hello

Hugh has invited me to post on his blog. I am not sure how long I will stay on the blog for. I may only be blogging during the election, I may continue beyond that. However, I do plan to be posting periodically throughout the election. I have been a partisan Conservative (provincially & federally) for years, but my bias is towards liberty, not any political party.

This post probably wasn't necessary, but it is just a heads up that if you see a post on this blog, look at the author of the post before assuming it was Hugh that wrote it.

May tries to re-divide the 'right'

In her interview with Question Period Ms. May dangled her feet in the old Reform-PC wars of the 1990s and early 00’s. She said that the Conservative Party has no right to the word ‘Tory.’ She said that it was a new party that betrayed the grassroots of the Reform Party and the ‘progressiveness’ of the Progressive Conservatives.

As someone that lived through the last few years of those wars, I had to roll my eyes. First of all there is no such thing as a progressive conservative. The term is meaningless. The name of the party came out of an attempt to attract Progressive Party voters in the 1930s; it does not suggest anything about ideology. Stop...please for the sake of my sanity, stop suggesting that it does.

She may have a point that the Conservative Party has little to do with the old toryism of the 19^th century, but I don’t think that was her point. Her real point was that Conservative Party has no connection to its pass, which is absurd of course. Institutional memory has been brought over and merged from both ‘heritage parties’ in the form of old graybeards if from nothing else.

The real issue here is that the Greens use to be able to attract conservative voters. That was when Jim Harris was the leader. You Ms. May, are no Jim Harris. Trying to reignite the old wars will not fool people into voting for you.

Anti-Harper vote swap is stupid

I was invited to a group on Facebook group titled, Anti-Harper Vote Swap Canada. The concept of the group is simple. Liberals who live in ridings that the NDP are competitive against the Conservatives vote NDP; vice versa in ridings that the Liberals are competitive. The goal is to prevent a Conservative majority government.

Let me make it clear to all you political junkies out there, strategic voting is stupid and pointless. For it to work you would need hundreds if not thousands of people to think exactly the same way you do. Your vote doesn’t matter enough to make the difference in any one riding. Even if your riding is won by a single vote, it still does not matter any more than all the other votes made.

Consider this Facebook group. They have 1647 members. We can assume, for argument’s sake, that every member of this group will actually participate in this vote swap. For this to work they would have to be perfectly distributed. If any number of these people live in ridings such as Trinity-Spadina or Ottawa-Centre, then the whole exercise is pointless.

The worst strategic voting I ever encountered was from a communist. He claimed that he voted Conservative so that the capitalistic system would get worst and bring about the worker’s revolution. I thanked him kindly for his vote.

A vote is a symbol of your support for a political party. It is a message that these ideas are your ideas; these values are your values (or at least the closest party to those values and ideas). That is the only way that your individual vote matters. If you are a communist, vote for the Communist Party (or the Marxist-Leninist Party). Do not throw your vote away by being ‘strategic.’

Taliban in the debate

I was looking at some political cartoons from the last few days. I really think that a good political cartoon is a lost art. My professors use to show 19th century political cartoons in their lectures. Some of them were so good that they made me laugh about leaders that have been dead for a hundred years. All of them were much better than this;

I don't get it. What is the artist trying to say here? Is he saying that the Greens are like the Taliban? How are they like the Taliban? One issue party? You can argue that the Greens are a one issue party but how the hell are the Taliban a one issue party?

This one is just wrong;



The cartoon is suggesting that Harper is ignoring the economy as an issue. The reality is that he is putting the issue front and centre. Harper is hoping that Canadian's confidence in Harper's ability to handle the economy gets him elected. For it to be good satire there has to be some truth to it.

I suppose it's not a totally lost art, there are still some good ones out there;



I guess I'm just being grouchy. They can't all be winners, and I'm sure there were a lot of really stupid 19th century cartoons that my professors didn't show me. But still, political cartoons use to be able to define an era or a debate in a single image. Now all we have is this;

Everyone call every PC MPP and tell them Murdoch is wrong

Bill Murdoch is reported in the CP as saying;

"I actually have given up on John Tory," said Murdoch. "He should certainly be looking for other jobs in the community and we should probably go to a full-blown election for a new leader."
Murdoch said he thinks there are other caucus members who support his call for a leadership vote. "I don't know whether they have the guts to do it publicly or not."

Now everyone should call every PC MPP and demand to prove that they have the 'guts to do it publicly.'

People have long said that all it'll take is one brave MPP to start the ball rolling, and here comes the ball.

(list of MPPs, list of caucus)

How much trouble do you think John Tory is in?

Read this article from the Globe & Mail, then read this article from The Ottawa Citizen. The Citizen makes it sound like Tory may be on the verge of facing an uprising. Most significantly;

"I've basically given up on him," said renegade MPP Bill Murdoch, stating openly what several others will only say off the record. "I don't think anybody's giving their seat up (for him)."

John Tory's two most loyal caucus members are Klees and Lisa MacLeod. Ms. MacLeod didn't even give either reporter a quote defending Tory (or maybe the reporter didn't use it). I couldn't find any other news reports on this story, so if someone can find me another quote from MacLeod I'd appreciate it. "needs to be addressed." Sounds very cold when it comes from MacLeod.

Klees continues to be his loyal mouth piece;

"He's come through the fire and he's still standing -- and he's still committed," Mr. Klees said. "I think if anything, one has to admire his tenacity."

If tenacity is the same thing as stubborness perhaps, but how much longer can that last? How much trouble is John Tory in?

Debate will be bad for the Greens and good for the Tories

If you ever doubted that whining loud enough will get you whatever you want, that doubt should now be dispelled (why don’t more people whine to be left alone by the government?). May, rightly or wrongly (and I do think rightly) is being let into the debate.

This is going to be a disaster for the Green Party. Right now, the Greens benefit from no one knowing who they are. They are outsiders, which appeals to the sort which like to gripe about the ruling elites. People who consider themselves environmentalists can feel like they have claim to that title by voting Green. Very few people actually know what their policies are. You have to wonder if people are really going to support massive increases to regulation of the sort that Ms. May stands for.

Also there is Ms. May herself. The woman is awful. Every time I see her I am less impressed. It is not just her policies. After all I dislike Obama’s policies but I am impressed by the way he communicates them. May really does come off as the crazy leader of a crazy fringe party. People are going to watch her and decide not to support her.

This is going to be fantastic for the Conservatives.

I remember being in a casual debate once. There were four of us sitting in a student lounge. We were discussing some government regulation (don’t remember what exactly). Usually in a university lounge it would be me against three. This time it was two on two, but how I wish it was me against three.

The guy on my side made horrible argument after horrible argument. Not just bad inconsistent arguments, but truly horrifying statements. He made me look like a jackass merely because I agreed with his conclusions (though I strongly disagreed with his premises).

This is what will happen in the debate. Every time May attacks Harper it will make it harder for the other three to attack Harper (and it will be four on one). They will have to soften their blows (as I did) with prefixes such as, “well I don’t know about that, but I do agree that Harper sucks.”

At least it will be entertaining watching Dion trying to distance himself from Ms. May while standing next to her.

Bob Barr...the one legged man who shoots himself in the foot

I am guessing that any chance that the Libertarian Party had of making an impact this election has been blown to bits. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand I like having the Libertarian argument made. On the other hand I think that small parties are a waste of time in the United States. (A little less of a waste in Canada because there is a history of small parties exploding, but still kind of a waste) People who want to fight for Liberty in the United States should focus their energy on organizations like the Republican Liberty Caucus. That is really the best hope

End the Beer Store

Hey Ontarian, are you tired to being gorged by a government enforced monopoly simply because you enjoy the occasional beer. Do you want access to convenient beer venues?

Get ten of your friends to sign this petition, and send it to the given address. With talk of liberalizing beer distribution in the last provincial election, now is the time to push this issue!

The election may not matter

Just so that everyone knows, as of tomorrow the election may not make a difference.

(though if someone wanted to bet me a hundred dollars on that I wouldn't take the bet)

Update:

So far no massive destruction...

Four failed PMs on climate change

Canada has six living Prime Ministers (if you don’t include John Thompson whom I’m convinced is alive and well in Switzerland). Four of these former PMs have something in common; well actually now they have two things in common.

The first thing they have in common is that they are all losers. Joe Clark, John Turner, Kim Campbell, and Paul Martin are all losers. I don’t mean that to say they never amounted to anything (after all they were PMs and what have you done with your life?). I simply mean to state that they all have lost elections.

No scratch that, they have all been humiliated at the polls. Joe Clark got kicked out in only nine months. John Turner let Mulroney win the largest caucus in Canadian history. Kim Campbell…well let’s just say John Tory ran her campaign. Paul Martin wasn’t humiliated exactly, but when you consider that heights he fell from, he would at least be very disappointed in himself.

With that in mind, consider the second thing these four have in common. They have all put their name to a document called, Time To Get Serious on Climate Change (because we were all giggling about it before). None of these people are experts on the topic, so I assume their names were added to give it political weight, or at least to get media attention. The problem is that these four won’t make anyone take this paper more seriously; in fact it will likely make people dismiss it. After all Canadians have denied (in some cases multiple times) these people a chance to govern. Why then would Canadians pay any particular attention to them?

I haven’t read the report, so I won’t make a final verdict on it. I will say, however, that it sounds like the same report we have all read (heard of) a thousand times. I will summarize in three statements; “We are all doomed”, “We must change everything” and most alarmingly, “only government can save us.” Or as the paper put it “But the crucial missing piece has been effective policies, which only governments can enact.”

Perhaps the greatest public service that these four have done is to ensure that no one takes this statist crap seriously.

Public funding: the case for the Greens to be in the debate

In the 2006 election the Green Party failed to achieve the breakthrough that they have long sought. They did not elect a Green Party MP. They did, however, achieve another sort of breakthrough. The Canadian people gave them the number of votes needed to receive public funding. As far as I know they are the only political party without a MP that receive direct public funding.

This is a crucial detail when discussing if the Green Party should be in the leader’s debate. Consider this; we are paying for Ms. May and her party to be able to run. At the same time we are told that they are not important enough to be in the debate. If they are that insignificant than why are they receiving tax payer’s money? If so few Canadians are interested in hearing them speak, than why are we all paying for them to have a microphone?

You really want to keep the Greens out of the debate? Stop public funding for political parties.

I have a 'western perspective'

Too bad I live in Toronto.

Really the funnest part of being a blogger is when your name pops up in random places.

“It [previously] was not so much the Web site of a governing party as it was a ‘Dion sucks' website,” wrote Hugh MacIntyre, a blogger for Western Standard, a news magazine with a Western Canadian perspective. “The largest space is still given to attacks, but it is far more balanced. You can actually see more pictures of Stephen Harper than [of] Stéphane Dion.”

Sorry Mr. Dion, carbon credits are Bullshit!

I heard Stephane Dion defend his choice of airplane by saying he will buy carbon credits. Carbon credits is one of the greatest ripoff idiotic new age crap that is out there. I'm sorry Dion, you are still polluting more than Harper is when you fly your plane. Buying abstract guilt coupons doesn't take that carbon dioxide out of the air.

Hang on, Penn and Teller can tell it a lot better than me.

NDP have best ad so far...full of crap but good

This political attack ad is the best I've seen so far in this election;



It makes it sound like the Conservatives are giving money to the wealthy and stealing it from the "1 in 8 impoverished children". I would like to know what the NDP's idea of poverty is. It seems to me that anyone who doesn't have cable TV qualify under the NDP's conception of being poor.

Putting that aside, corporate tax cuts are the best thing that the Conservative government has done. We have the lowest corporate taxes of any G8 country and my one complaint is that they are not lower. Low corporate taxes bring in FDI and FDI creates jobs. These jobs will help feed all children. So you can stuff it Jack Layton.

Also he implies that the Conservatives are in cahoots with "big oil" to screw you over. Did you realize that Canada has relatively low gas prices? In Ukraine they pay twice the amount and they barely complain. Besides, what exactly is your plan Mr. Layton? Make the oil companies give it away for free?

So as I say, in effective ad, but full of crap.

Oh Shutup CAW

I have to say off the top that I have nothing against Unions in principle. Unions and collective bargaining can be part of any free market system. People should be allowed to freely combine their resources to get the best deal that they can.

The despicable characteristic of unions cannot be applied to all unions, but it certainly can be to CAW. The new President of the CAW, Ken Lewenza, has announced that he, “will do everything within [his] power, within the influence of the Canadian Auto Workers union to influence the electoral process and citizens not to give the Tories the majority government that they're working for.”

Excuse me for being confused, but isn’t the purpose of a union to negotiate a more beneficial contract for workers? For what reason would a private sector union care about which government is in power? Isn’t the primary relationship between the union and the corporation, not the union and political parties? Is it possible that the union bosses care more about their socialist ideology than their members? Is it possible that the President of the CAW is pursuing goals that are not in sync with the needs of the CAW membership?

Why did he mention Afghanistan and violence against woman in his speech? How does that fall under the curfew of union responsibility? Perhaps violence against woman in the workplace is a union issue, but I can think of no reason why Afghanistan is an issue for the CAW.

How many supporters of the Conservative Party have to pay CAW dues? They really should ask for their money back.

The media on Harper's testimony

The coverage of Harper's testimony regarding his 3.5 million dollar libel suit against the Liberals is about what you would expect.

This is the Star's headline and first paragraph;

PM authorized offer to Cadman

OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper has testified that he personally authorized an offer made to MP Chuck Cadman in 2005 for help defeating the Liberal government.

This is the Globe & Mail headline and first paragraph;

Harper testifies he authorized offer to Cadman

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he gave his chief party organizer the okay to meet with the late Chuck Cadman in 2005 and make an offer of electoral assistance in return for rejoining the caucus and helping to defeat the then-Liberal government.

Both create the impression that Harper admitted to the whole thing. Really he was just confirming what he said all along. He always said that he approved of an overture but that he didn't know the details. Thanks to these openings the rest of his denial sounds dubious.

This is the National Post's headline and first paragraph;

Cadman bribe 'preposterous' testifies Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has told a court that an alleged offer to the late MP Chuck Cadman of a $1-million life insurance policy in exchange for his vote in the Commons in 2005 is "preposterous" and that only "rogue representatives" of the Conservative party could have done such a thing.

Canada's three national newspapers. Two of them displayed a clear bias against Harper.

Harper is actually featured on conservative.ca

One of my complaints about how the Conservative Party has long been their website. It was not so much the website of a governing party as it was a "Dion sucks" website. Which is fine for us who have already picked a side, but it is unlikely to convince many of the undecided.

The new website is much better. The largest space is still given to attacks, but it is far more balanced. You can actually see more pictures of Stephen Harper than Stephane Dion. It's not perfect and there are still some things I would change. For example I think its still too busy. They need to be a little more focused and perhaps change the format a little.

Other than that I am hopeful that this is part of a trend towards a more positive message.

Jesse Ventura Speech at the Rally for Republic

Some enterprising sould posted these videos.

Alaska's Maverick Video

Here is a new McCain campaign video comparing Obama and Palin. This is likely the best ad I've seen this campaign. It is certainly the most effective attack on Obama's 'change' strategy. The woman's voice is a nice touch as well.

Meghan McCain defend's Palin's family

McCain's daughter, Meghan, has a blog (I didn't know that ten minutes ago). On this blog she sticks up for Palin and her family (in "Daughters"). She does it from the prospective of a daughter whose father has been in the spotlight her whole life. Too often people forget that these aren't characters on television. Politicians and their families are real people. Human beings like you and I. Part of the reason why politics get so nasty is that we dehumanize those politicians we like and dislike.

(I know that I've been writing a lot about Palin, hell the whole blogosphere has been writing a lot about Palin. My only defence is that I'm watching CNN and they've talked about nothing else in an hour)

Republicans attack Palin

Watching CNN I noticed something interesting. They interviewed a Republican Alaskan Senator, he was talking about Palin. The question was if she was ready to lead, and he responded that he didn’t know, “time will tell.” Which seemed weak to the point of being an underhanded attack.

Then they interviewed the disposed Republican Governor. He said that Palin flip flopped on the bridge to nowhere. She only opposed it once in office, saying that the costs were getting too high (which seems reasonable to me).

Two members of the Alaskan Republican establishment, both are attacking the soon to be Republican nominee for Vice-President. They seem incredibly bitter towards her, to be attacking her at the beginning of a presidential campaign.

Is it odd that this makes me like her more?

Western Standard reveals the truth about Palin

Read here to find out Palin's true political ambitions.

The Green Tax Shift gets worse

The Green Tax Shift plan is now going to include subsidies for farmers, truckers and fisherman. Basically they are now removing the incentives which would have caused these industries to change. This brings us to the puzzling question of how Dion expects this plan to actually improve the environment. It has always been true that even a massive decrease in carbon emissions from Canada would barely have been a blip in the world’s carbon dioxide levels. Now it is increasingly doubtful that there would be any significant decrease at all.

So to recap, Liberal plan is to raise taxes by 5 billion dollars, increase corporate welfare, and do nothing effective to help the environment.

The Liberal caucus is right to worry.

What will Harper run on?

Sitting at a downtown bar I look up and see a commercial on television. The people in the commercial look rigid and uninteresting. The volume is low so I can’t hear what they are saying. Part of me thinks that it is an insurance commercial, but alas it is not. It is the new commercial for the Conservative Party of Canada.

In one sense I am happy with it. I have long waited for the positive turn in the Conservative campaign strategy (which has been going on for two years). Now is the time to go positive.

In another sense I can’t help but feel like I’m going to barf. Why should we vote for Stephen Harper? Because he is a family man and in it for the right reasons? Is this to say that Dion is in it for the wrong reasons, and that Dion hates his family?

This may be positive but its positive crap. The question remains open, what will Stephen Harper run on?

(Also this ad may look familiar, with some small changes)

Palin and the little girl with a pink shirt

This is a video advertising Palin as the VP choice. It is a boring video, but watch the little girl in the pink shirt in the background. Can you identify the object she is playing with?

(I tried to post the video but I could only post the link)

Ukrainians are crazy

I had lunch with a friend of mine that just came back from her home land, the Ukraine. She was telling me about some of the bizarre restaurants she went to. One restaurant you had to put your hand in the pocket of a statue and grab the penis to open the door. That, however, was not nearly the most bizarre of establishments.

There is a restaurant called Bunker (translated from Ukraine). It has an anti-Russian insurgency theme. No kidding. You have to go into an underground tunnel and then you are met by an armed guard at the door of the restaurant. You have to give a password to get pass the guard. You then have to answer a series of questions to insure that you aren’t a ‘Russian Spy.’ The questions demand patriotic answers. At the end of the questioning you have to drink a shot of vodka to prove that you are truly Ukrainian.

You have to drink the vodka. Only small children are excepted. If you refuse they take you to a small room and lecture you about Ukrainian history and culture.

The best part is when you get inside.

You can actually buy an antique gun at the restaurant.

“I’ll have the steak with salad and a pistol on the side.”

How you like that for gun control?

Where is Peter Van Loan?

The Hon. Peter Van Loan likes to go to Republican conventions. He has memorabilia from different conventions in his Ottawa office. I think he likes to go not just to learn but to feel the energy of the Republican election machine. There was a news article about a week ago that said he was going to the convention now taking place in St. Paul, Minnesota. Yet try as I might I could not find any news outlet that confirms that he went. The fact that he was on Newsworld yesterday may indicate that he is skipping it this year.

If anyone wanted more evidence of when the election will be, I recommend locating Peter Van Loan.

Harper's election to lose

The Globe & Mail announces that their poll indicates that Harper could be in reach of a majority government. 37% would vote Conservative and 29% would vote Liberal. I find these numbers to be irrelevant. It’s not just that they are basically the same numbers we saw in the last election; it’s that they are the same numbers we’ve seen for two years. The polls have gone up and down but they always ultimately return to within two percent of the election results.

The far more interesting numbers are what Canadian’s priorities are and who they think are best suited to deal with those priorities. 20% of respondents say that the economy is the most important issue, while at the same time only 15% say that it is the environment. Considering the Liberal’s Green Tax Shift, it doesn’t take much intuition to gather that this is a disaster waiting to happen for the Liberals.

That intuition is backed up by the numbers in the poll. 38% say that the Conservatives are better at handling the economy compared to 27% that said it was the Liberals. More importantly, 45% said that Harper would be better at handling an economic downturn. Only 21% thought the same of Dion. Maybe the most surprising part of the poll was that the two parties were nearly tied on the environment. 17% thought the Conservatives would be best to handle the environment and 20% thought it would be the Liberals.

This means that as things stand now the Liberals have picked the wrong issue by pushing the Green Tax Shift. No one wants to hear about a fundamental shift in the economy when they are worried about losing the economic success that they already have. The Liberals don’t even have a commanding lead on the environment issue. On the other hand, this is a poll taken before Canadians have heard the sales pitch from either side. Things can change in a hurry in politics.

All told, I’m not sure a majority government is likely, but this still would be Harper’s election to lose.