Canadian Cincinnatus

The scientific-technological elite

The liberals are fond of remembering that part of President Eisenhower’s farewell address which cautioned against the growing power of the military-industrial complex. However there is another part to the same speech that they are just a wee bit less fond of quoting. To wit:

“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Climate modeling anyone?

Obama and Gitmo

The blowback Obama is now getting from his decision to close Club Fed (the Senate voting 90 to 6 to block the transfer of Gitmo detainees) was entirely predictable and is a revealing indicator of the political naiveté in the Obama White House. 

Political Strategy 101 dictates that this decision should not have been made until the following sentence could have been satisfactorily completed: “When the facility at Guantanamo Bay is closed, X will be done with the inmates there,” where X is something politically acceptable to the American populace. This much should have been obvious but the pushback Obama is receiving from allies as close as Senator Harry Reid demonstrate that he doesn’t know what X is. For a Senate Majority Leader to take as strong a stance as he did ("Part of what we don't want is them be put in prisons in the United States," and "We don't want them around the United States.") against a President of his own party shows how unpopular the X posited by President Obama (to move them into the continental US) really is.

The Administration had hoped by that X might have been the mass transfer of Gitmo detainees to their country of origin but aside from a few isolated cases this is not happening. It seems Europe doesn’t want any of them in spite of their anti-Gitmo pose. If the Obama administration had been smart they would have quietly surveyed the home countries first before announcing a decision.

It is clear that this thoughtless decision was made when the administration was flush with euphoria of electoral victory – and hubris. Allowing a transitory emotional state to affect a crucial decision is a rookie mistake – and an indication that the ‘best and brightest’ (as they are breathlessly described by the legacy media) are actually inexperienced and bumbling.

In Toronto 100 Cyclists Trump 27,000 drivers

Toronto under Mayor David Miller suffers from the tyranny of a small well-organized minority led by the Toronto Environmental Alliance and their wheeled division, the Toronto Cyclists Union.

This little army is used like shock troops anytime city hall wants to force through an anti-driver or unpopular green program, and their chief purpose is political theater for left-leaning media.  The intention is to make it appear that there is broad-based public support for whatever it is the Millerites want to change for the worse.

I first saw them overwhelm the deputations that residents of St. Clair West tried to make condemning the purposed streetcar Right Of Way.  Oddly, the first fifteen speakers, supposedly drawn at random from the public to address city council, were all in favor of the ROW, the council chamber packed with their cheering supporters.  An hour later they were done, so the TV cameras and print journalists packed up and left.   For the next twelve hours the residents of St Clair got their turn to speak against the ROW. Nobody heard.

Next I watched with fascination as the TEA stacked a windmill meeting in Scarborough, their members stating that local concerns should be trumped by the needs of the "greater community."  Who cares if the windmills cause noise, disrupt bird migrations or sully the view of the lake.  Oddly, the Toronto Environmental Alliance had trouble hiding their little army among the general public this time because they rented buses to carry them from Kennedy Subway Station to Guildwood Village.  Uhm, what does that say about public transit in Scarborough if even the TEA members find it so inconvenient they need to rent their own buses?

Yesterday they all donned bike helmets and crammed Toronto's council chambers to state that they desperately need bike lanes on Jarvis St.  Forget that there already are north-south bike lanes on Sherbourne St, 500 meters to the east; forget that in warm months those bike lanes are only used by 100 cyclists per rush hour.  Right now Jarvis supports 27, 000 drivers per rush hour, and that continues through the winter, when the number of cyclists plummets.

The bike lane motion passed easily through city council, of course, to the cheers of the purported masses.  The Main Stream Media spoke glowingly of all the bike helmets at city hall.  Again the false message is that this change for the worse on Jarvis has broad-based public support.

Drivers vastly outnumber cyclists and public transit riders (TTC riders are only 19% of commuters.)  But motorists have allowed the enviro-clerics to convinced them that they are sinners--shameful, disgusting sinners who must keep a low profile. 

The truth is that all the anti-driver measures of the Millerites are increasing downtown pollution, not reducing it.  An idling car in stop-and-go traffic produces four times the pollution of a coasting car.  I actually learned that from the TEA when they were fighting a McDonalds Drive thru on St Clair Ave, a battle in which the TEA portrayed MacDonalds as an anti-social environmental sinner.  So the true anti-social, environmental sinners on Jarvis are the TEA and the Millerites.

The enviro-clerics' saint, Jane Jacobs, is often invoked by the TEA: "Who are we building the city for?  People or cars?"

I got news for the TEA:  PEOPLE drive cars.  Voters drive cars.

What drivers need is an activist group based on the TEA model, and the Canadian Automobile Association is too timid for this role.  If drivers stop feeling guilty and start fighting for their right to personal transportation, they can easily overwhelm the Toronto Environmental Alliance.  It would be hard for the Toronto Star to ignore 10,000 drivers at a city hall meeting.

Most people have lives though, and will suffer through the traffic listening to their i-pods or sipping morning coffee for now.  But each time Toronto puts through an anti-driver program, the Millerites lose votes.  This will take time to build, but one day the MSM will be stunned when 27,000 drivers finally outweigh the 100 cyclists, even 100 well-organized cyclists.

The majority can rule.

Mike Downtown.

Political correctness must die

Over at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood website, I came across a couple of excellent articles by James Hudnall:

1. Why political correctness must die

and 

2. How to kill political correctness in five easy steps

The money quotes are:

“Political Correctness is hated by just about anyone you meet. The only people driving it are leftists and government bureaucrats, who earn a living from it.”

“PC is something everyone seems to hate, yet it pervades our culture and lives. The only people who seem to like it are the ones who use it to impose their will on everyone else.”

“The good news is the public is against them and signs are there that they tide is already turning. If there’s one thing power fears it’s when the masses are against them. We’re already at that point...”

My personal experience tells me that James Hudnall is absolutely right. Many people I know who don’t have a conservative bone in their body absolutely hate political correctness. John-Tory-safe fiscal conservative issues like tax cuts leaves them cold (“they’re for the rich”), but their hatred for PC is visceral.

I would say that defeating PC can be a wedge issue, one that can pry many liberal voters away from the Liberal party, provided you can find a leader with enough gumption to say what is necessary. Mike Harris went a little ways down this road and was able to take half the seats in liberal Toronto in 1995 and a third of them in 1999. In contrast, socially liberal Ernie Eves and John Tory won a total of zip Toronto ridings.

However, you have to be prepared for the obvious counterattack - that by dismantling PC you are protecting the rights of racists, Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan to speak. The way to counter this is to forthright and say yes, free speech should be guaranteed to all Canadians – within the sensible bounds of British common law tradition (i.e. slander, libel, obscenity, and the promotion of crime aren’t protected). But political and religious speech is, or should be. In fact, the best thing to do is to bring these points up right away so that you flat-foot the opposition right off the bat.

As an aside, this is one of those issues where the red tories have it exactly backwards. They think economic conservatism is the part of conservatism that sells well and that messy social conservative issues are what holds us back (“Paul Martin – he’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal, just the way Canadians like it”).  This may be true for the Globe and Mail editorial board and in downtown Toronto, but not in our small towns and ethnic communities. Why else do populists so often evoke socialist themes? And why else do they tend to be socially conservative?

A modest prediction about Stephane Dion

I predict that within, say, a year after he finally departs the political scene, Stephane Dion will come out with a tell-all book about his experiences in Ottawa, the major theme being that Canadian democracy is hopelessly corrupt and dysfunctional.

In other words, instead of admitting his own failings - that he simply is incapable of leading a political party - he will find it more ‘intellectually satisfying’ to damn to hell one of the world’s oldest and most stable democracies.

How much do you want to bet this will happen?

Remember when the book hits the shelves, you heard it here first.

Toronto's Electricity Rates Set to Rise

When Toronto Mayor David Miller says you can lower your electricity rates, you'd better grab your wallet and hang on tight.  Electricity rates, the price/kilowatt hour that makes up half of the average Toronto Hydro bill, are set to rise 40-60%.

The eco-clerics and David Miller are quick to point out that if you don't mind doing your laundry and dishes after 10pm, and only run your air conditioner or dry your hair dryer in the middle of the night, you could actually save money.

Of course most people will prefer to have their house cool on the summer afternoons, will want to do their laundry during the day on Saturday (there is no weekend exemption) and will prefer to get a good night sleep rather than stay up late waiting to get the best price for electricity before turning on the oven to make dinner.

Since the 10pm to 7am rate is lower than the current rate (4.2 versus 5.7), David Miller is telling the truth: you could lower your Toronto Hydro bill, but the reality is most of us will see it go up.

I actually like the concept of time of use because it's pure capitalist supply and demand.  You want to use power during peak demand, you must pay more.   Even though I run a home-based business and will be hit harder than average with the time-of-use billing, I think it's fair.

But please don't tell me this change has been put in place to help me save money.  The number crunchers have done their work and looked at their pie charts: Toronto Hydro is about to reap the windfall they need to pay for all those smart meters.

So don't be surprised when your electricity bill rises.  David Miller and the eco-clerics will simply tell you it's all your fault.  It's their mantra.

Mike Downtown

The case for conservative optimism in the age of Obama

Noted social critic Roger Kimball is right when he says, “the socialist onslaught that is Barack Obama confronts us not only with challenges but also with opportunities. Battle lines, philosophical difference, moral alternatives are being drawn more sharply now than in decades. As Mr. Brooks concludes, ‘This is an exhilarating time for proponents of freedom and individual opportunity.’”

He is absolutely right because what a movement needs, almost as much as friends, is enemies. And Obama is the best enemy conservatives could have because his activism has brought or will bring to the fore a whole raft of issues that either have lain dormant under the surface or have quietly advanced incrementally. Bill Clinton was a much worse enemy because he knew how to bob and weave. He never over-reached to the point of becoming a clear target (at least after the 1994 revolution taught him this lesson), so that when his enemies went after him for Monica Lewinski, they ended up looking petty, vindictive, puritanical and hypocritical. Fortunately, fighting Obama should be much more rewarding. Any battle with him will be a struggle over core principles. He has given America a choice, between the ideas central to the US constitution and therefore the American identity, or those of discredited European socialism. Through his overreach he has ensured a principled debate that he cannot win, as that most perceptive of political observers, Dick Morris, has noted.

I am more optimistic about the future of conservatism in America than I have been in a long time.

What fools those ‘moderate’ Republicans are with their appeasement, oops, I mean ‘listening’, tour. The greatest political opportunity in a generation is staring them in the face and all they want to do is to run around apologizing for who they are. They want to reassure Americans that their main interest is helping Obama succeed – the man who wants them to fail.

Constitutional scholar Randy Barnett wants a constitutional convention

Most people don’t know this aspect of Article 5 of the US constitution:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments…

The US has never held a constitutional convention, mostly because whenever one has been proposed, the powers that be in Washington have been so scared stiff by the prospect that they would rather satisfy the grievances of the offended parties - even if this is the last thing they want to do. The reason that a Constitutional convention is frightening to the beltway crowd is because the convention process is driven entirely at the State level with no federal input whatsoever. It was meant as a check on the power of the federal government if it grows too powerful. Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett proposes 10 amendments, which would limit the federal government to what it was intended to be before a whole string of unconstitutional power grabs from FDR on down to Obama greatly expanded it.

A list of his proposed amendments can be found here.

He has written a highly recommended book describing the type of constitution necessary to attain maximum liberty, The Structure of Liberty.

We're All Gonna Get in a Fight

I felt it the first time the day I crossed the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan.  It was 1988 and the war was still clear then: good against evil, the mujahideen against the Russians.  The oppressed underdog was about to throw out the occupier.

Shells from the Soviet base screamed right over our heads, outbound to a village on the other side of the plain.  I was unusually aware of my heart rate.  I remember thinking, "Well, you wanted to go to a war zone!"  The exhilaration was a thrill.  I was part of something BIG.  I was invincible.  Better yet, we’re all gonna get in a fight!

This surge of excitement has help precipitate gang wars and world wars, and now apparently, Toronto city hall turf wars.

Toronto Councillor Adam Giambrone, a member of Mayor David Miller's elite inner circle, discovered that Councillor Cesar Palacio, Ward 17, was daring to help the Portuguese community get a special event permit at an address in Giambrone’s ward.

Giambrone didn’t like Palacio muscling in and looking fine on his turf.  We’re all gonna get in a fight.  The thrill must’ve coursed through Giambrone’s blood, because he sent a nasty e-mail promising to, "start looking for ways to make trouble for you," if Palacio dared set foot again on Giambrone's turf.

A tempest in a teapot maybe, but the problem is Giambrone signed it as Toronto Transit Commission Chair Adam Giambrone, and many people in Ward 17 already feel the TTC is doing all it can "to make trouble" in the ward as payback for its citizens daring to fight the St. Clair street car right-of-way.

The first shock to the Ward 17 community came in November 2007, when the TTC suddenly decided to jump ahead on ROW construction and work through the winter in Ward 17.  This left St. Clair between Bathurst and Dufferin, a community with a pro-David Miller councillor, untouched.  Parking was good through the winter in Ward 21, and no lanes were closed due to construction.

Ward 17 on the other hand was crushed.  Traffic was down to a single lane each way.  No parking was possible.  Christmas sales were a disaster at the stores that had fought the TTC in court over the ROW.  The economic impact was punishing.  Worse, because it was a cold winter, most of the time construction didn't proceed at all, so the congestion, lost parking and upset dragged as long as possible.

Now Ward 17 is stuck with an ROW but no streetcar because the TTC now has to connect the two sections of completed ROW through Ward 21.  St Clair through Ward 17, which used to be two lanes each way, is now one lane each way with buses crowding the lanes.  The ROW is just a big unused concrete pad down the middle of St. Clair.

Oddly, when the TTC was ready to go through David Miller friendly Ward 21 in November 2008, they elected to wait until spring of 2009 to mitigate the impact of construction on retailers.  Uhm, where was that concern for St Clair businesses in ward 17 the year before?

The Royal Navy used to have a saying: you can tell a lot about the captain of a ship by how the stoker behaves.  It's common sense, because the captain sets the standard for behavior, is mimicked by his officers as so on all the way down to the stoker shoveling coal in the bowels of the ship.

So what does Giambrone's threatening and vindictive letter tell us about his boss, Mayor David Miller?  Let's hope that all of the TTC's excuses about why they had to crush Ward 17 in the winter of 2007-2008 are true, and their behavior was not an act of vengeance on citizens who dared to hold an different vision for St. Clair.

Giambrone may also want to put his blackberry down for a few weeks because Councillor Palacio doesn't make threats.  He's just taking Giambrone's e-mail to the integrity commissioner.

We're all gonna get in a fight.

Mike Downtown

Has the stagflation already arrived?

Oil prices are on the rise, as are stock prices. Unfortunately, unemployment is also up, and industrial orders and consumer spending are still way down.

Hmmm...

Prices rising while economic activity stagnates. Could this be an indication of the stagflation that some economists have been warning us about ever since the US Federal Reserve starting printing money en mass?

An interesting factoid not unrelated to the above question: the Federal Reserve has almost quadrupled the amount of US dollars in circulation since October (that is October 2008, not 2007).

Here  is a graphical demonstration of this.