Panglossian Notes

The unreal world ...

There isn't much to even say about this piece at TPMMuckraker.

The Disneyland head of state surrounds himself with certified liars and delusional nitwits but who better to assure him of his roughish ways.

The Harper is to make a pilgrimage to Disneyland sometime after both our and their national birthday parties in July.

Too bad.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Liars, National Post, Politicans, puppy, Stupidity, The Harper

The new horde but from the West this time.

Wasn't it the Germans at the end of the second world war that fled westward so as not to be have to surrender to the Russians.

Numerous British officers, in the recent past, have made comments about the American style of so-called fighting. I think I remember terms used such as: cowboys and John Wayne gung-ho type senior types with wrap around sunglasses.

From the comments of ordinary British solders looks like even they know the boys and gals from the states are a problem to be shoulder to shoulder with, eh.

Nice allies for us to have in Afghanistan. Thank The Harper and his pal George W., I guess.

British soldiers currently in Iraq said they were anxious to distance themselves from the Americans but that Iraqis did seem able to make a distinction. One private, who did not wish to be named, said: 'We are given an education: the Americans get shown how to use a gun. The Iraqis know the difference.'

Captain Victoria Wedgwood-Jones, of 20 Armed Brigade, said: 'When the British come and say we are British, they welcome us warmly.'

The Guardian
May 28, 2006

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, Harpers, The Guardian, The Harper

What a thing!

Even Josh Marshall was hit by the fiasco linked to the National Post's printing the false story on Iran and the "dress codes"

Good to see that The Harper's nonsense comments were noted.

Now there is a real reason not to speak to any media that know anything - they could ask you why you run off at the mouth before you know the facts.

Better to hid.

I note that The Harper has, or seems to have, the support of the usual cast of characters, the unquestioning don't bother me with details crowd.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Harper, National Post, Public honesty, Stupidity

"Unfortunates" according to The Harper.

Just to keep the tally sort of honest or maybe updated, it seems that our Southern partners may have actually killed 34 innocents as we manned the road blocks leading into Aziz.

Does this mean that The Harper says "unfortunate" twice.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, Chaos, Harper, Stupidity

Ok enough already with the Equalization crap.

This sees to be a particularly nutty day in regard to federal transfers. The G&M is reporting that Premier Klein has said he will take Alberta out of Equalization if resource revenues are part of any new formula.

This is a bit confusing and I really do wonder what he maybe thinking about. The article indicates he has ask for legal options.

The various comments by readers, available on the G&M website, clearly indicate that most people don't know much about the Equalization program or its workings.

This has also been evident when the G&M reported on Premier McGuinty's concerns that any move by the federal government to fix the so-called "fiscal imbalance" throught the Equalization program was grossly unfair to Ontario. In fact it would also be unfair to Albertans also but Premier Klein and Alberta are currently awash in provincial revenues.

The main confusion seems to be over whether or not provincial governments make direct discretionary contributions to the Equalization program.

THEY DO NOT.

Equalization is a federal program. This means that payments or transfers to provinces under the program are strictly a federal matter. The federal Act that authorizes the program is the Federal Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act.

If anyone would care to have a look here's the link to the Act and its regulations. In effect the detailed calculation required to determine a provinces entitlement to a payment or transfer under the Equalization program are detailed in the Act and its regulation.

It really is less complicated than some Parts of the federal Income Tax Act. But it is still not too much fun to struggle through.

So back to the confusion or maybe I should be referring to it as the misunderstanding.

If the province governments don't contributed directly to funds transfered under the Equalization program, where do the funds come from?

They come from the federal governments general revenues which are collected uniformly across the country from all taxpayers from a number of sources. To see exactly what the sources are check the federal public accounts here.

Taxes & duties of all kinds account for about 84% of total federal revenues and the most important single source, accounting for approximately 45% of total revenues, is the personal income tax.

Just to be clear, the federal government does not directly impose taxes or any other revenue raising mechanism on any provinces' upstream oil or natural gas production.

The unwinding of the fiscal features of the National Energy Program in 1984 repealed all the federal taxes that had been directly imposed on upstream production. Thus the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax, the Natural Gas and Gas Liquids Tax, the Export Tax on Heavy Crude etc. were all killed.

The federal government does impose corporate income taxes on all companies regardless of the sector of the economy in which they may earn income.

In order to understand McGuinty's concerns, and I think Klein's, you need to look at federal revenues from the point of view of who pays them - in other words in which provinces do the taxpayers live.

This type of information isn't as readily available on any government site but it is possible to determine a pretty good approximation of the provincial origin of federal revenue using CRA sources and provincial public accounts.

My estimate of the source of federal revenues on a provincial and territorial basis can be seen in the Table below.

Ontario accounts for about 42% of all federal revenues but they receive no Equalization payments. They do receive other federal transfers such as the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and the Canada Social Transfer (CST). Both the CHT and CST are allocated to all jurisdictions on a per capita basis.

The Table was constructed using the latest tax data generally available which unfortunately for me was 2003. Government will have more up-to-date information i.e. they will have some information now on the distribution of 2004 taxes but it is likely too soon for 2005 in particular for personal and corporate income taxes.

For 2005 and on I would expect to see Alberta become a relatively more important source for federal revenues because of the provinces expanding economy. Alberta hasn't received any Equalization payments since 1964.

So McGuinty's concern is that even though his province is the major source for federal revenues, if the federal government uses the Equalization program to give provinces some of the federal surpluses, then Ontarians will have paid for most of the federal largess, but get nothing.

Premier Klein seems less concerned in general about having Albertans pay for the federal government to give other provinces its taxpayers money by way of Equalization as long as the sharing isn't too much -i.e. the share isn't determined by including resource revenues.

This latter part I'll have to explain by going through how Equalization is determined -to be continued.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Equalization, Federal Provincial Relations, Fiscal imbalance

The predicted US follow-up on the Aziz incident

As, it seems, can always now be predicted (see my earlier post), the US has defended its actions in the attack on the village of Aziz.

" troops were being fired on and they had the right to defend themselves"

"The ultimate cause of why civilians were injured and killed is because the Taliban knowingly, willfully chose to occupy homes of these people. We do everything we can to prevent killing civilians ..."

U.S. military spokesman
Col. Tom Collins

Le Monde summarized the US approach to dealing with people that aren't Americans from the US of A. in their editorial yesterday:

" The United States has committed mistakes in Afghanistan similar to the ones it has perpetrated in Iraq: a strategy almost entirely devoted to "the war against terrorism" rather than reconstruction; their army's intolerable behavior - arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, humiliations, contempt, and ignorance of the local culture. In Afghanistan as in Iraq, they have alienated a population that, shattered by decades of conflict and satisfied with the end of a tyrannical regime, wanted only to rally round."

Le Monde via truthout
May 23, 2006

The reports on the CBC website, regarding the incident, are the now standard confused and contradictory mess the National News source seems to provide.

It reports "No Canadian forces were involved ..". Then quotes a coalition spokesman Maj. Scott Lundy as saying the hostilities were "one of the most significant single engagements that we've had in the recent past." and "Coalition forces were under pressure and taking a lot of fire," Lundy said. "It was very intense."

Isn't a coalition more than one. So, were we involved or weren't we involved?

Looks to me like there are 13 happy coalition members of which Canada is one. Maj. Scott Lundy appears to think we were involved.

It would be nice for some clarity from the CBC. After all The Guardian reported that we were acting as traffic controllers for the attack on Aziz.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, CBC, Chaos

Canada adopts US strategy

Following on the Guardian's report yesterday that the Canadian military performed the roadblock duty as US warthogs and Apache gunships attacked the village of Azizi killing numerous civilian, it looks like we have accept the standard American strategy.

The moment troops are threatened bring in the planes. Can't have body bags going home after all or wounded, they are a drain on the health care system.

Understandable, I guess, in a conventional type mess.

Problem is the dumb civilians always get in the way.

Hey, but it lets the military, media and heroic politicians characteristic the enemy, terrorist, insurgents whatever they are, as really evil or even subhuman because they are using women and children as shields.

I thought the British, in dealing with Malaysia in the 50's and 60's had figured out the only successful way of dealing with an insurgence.

Win hearts and minds.

This means not killing the gd civilians your trying to save. It also takes a long time and is risky.

Most importantly it means some of yours die and more than you may want.

So far, it seems to have been the only successful sorting out of a mess at least a bit similar to Afghanistan.

I suspect if we were left with just the other Nato countries we might be able to figure out some way of actually dealing with our Southern neighbours mess without maybe shooting ourselves in the foot.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, foreign policy

Road Block?

The following is an except from the Guardian story on the latest fun and games in Afghanistan.

Just a couple of quick comments.

1 - I don't trust enemy, insurgent, terrorist body counts, but maybe someone out there does.

2 - With governors like Khalid I wonder how any Western - say Harper - could image this mess isn't going to take a very very very long time to establish any sense of "Defense, Development or Diplomacy". Our three goals for being there.

3 - I'm overjoyed the US commander will look into things, can't they just quite saying this BS.

4 - I had wondered how we were delivering on on our three goals. Now it's revealed. We're stopping traffic. (I'm being sarcastic.)

Sixteen civilians were killed and another 16 injured, said an unapologetic Kandahar governor, Asadullah Khalid. "These sort of accidents happen during fighting, especially when the Taliban are hiding in homes," he said. An injured villager, Haji Ikhlaf, estimated that up to 40 Taliban were killed and that 50 civilians were dead or wounded. A coalition statement said it confirmed 20 Taliban killed and there were an unconfirmed 60 additional Taliban casualties.

The American commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, said he was looking into reports of civilian deaths.

Reporters were prevented from reaching Azizi by Canadian and Afghan roadblocks.

Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Tuesday May 23, 2006
The Guardian

Boy does some of this stuff have a vague Vietnam smell about it. The governor, in particular, just has a bit of that Saigon officials attitude about him. At this point I hope the US gets out and leaves things to the other Nato nationals to try and sort out. I suspect if they don't this is a big rock and they are just going to keep making the hill steeper and steeper.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Canada, foreign policy

The Blair visit or bunker delusions.

I wonder what Blair thinks he may be accomplishing in his jaunt off to the "Green Zone". I can hardly believe any more that there is a single British citizen who would take anything he says or does as relevant.

Blair's last two terms as PM are becoming a comical catastrophe as he seems to play out the role of the classic tragic character to the full. His domestic policy and hold on his party are coming a bit unglued and the Conservatives seem to be turning themselves into new-Tories following Labour's re-birth example.

In foreign policy, he truly demonstrates his tragic characteristics. Here, he made the choice to back Bush and the US in the Iraqi fiasco from which there seems to be no real escape. This visit to the "Green Zone" shows that he resists the obvious conclusion about the situation - that his decision was wrong.

But, he isn't a tragic hero, though. Just a tragic character.

Why?

Because, I don't think, he would actually die for the sake of the Bush cause. That's for others to do.

Passages of Patrick Cockburn's latest report contrasting Blair's visit and deluded declarations with the real situation on the ground, outside the "Green Zone", seem more like the movie Downfall's depictions of Berlin bunker in 1945.

I wonder who will get to play Blair in the movie about this modern madness.

Now, of course, Blair could maybe qualify as a comic character, particularly when you try to picture his Mexican holiday shindig just before 9/11.

During their stay at the Maroma Hotel, a pricey retreat on Mexico's Caribbean coast, Cherie Booth/Blair took her husband by the hand and led him along the beach to a 'Temazcal', a steam bath enclosed in a brick pyramid. It was dusk and they had stripped down to their swimming costumes. Inside, they met Nancy Aguilar, a new-age therapist. She told them that the pyramid was a womb in which they would be reborn. The Blairs became one with 'Mother Earth'. They saw the shapes of phantom animals in the steam and experienced 'inner-feelings and visions'. As they smeared each other with melon, papaya and mud from the jungle, they confronted their fears and screamed. The joyous agonies of 'rebirth' were upon them. The ceremony over, the Prime Minister and First Lady waded into the sea and cleaned themselves up as best they could.

Nick Cohen
Sunday March 31, 2002
The Observer

Nicholas Lezard in the Guardian said it best: "To read here of Tony and Cherie Blair's rebirthing experience in a Mexican mud bath in 2001 is to be torn between contempt and hilarity."

Lezard was refering to to the incident at the Maroma Hotel but had read about it in Francis Wheen's book How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World (A Short History of Modern Delusions).

Technorati Tags: Iraqi, News and Politic, Politics

Reality and fiction

Didn't Michael Connelly's new paperback - The Closers - mention this type of company was out there in the market. I, think, he calls it ListenTech.