Panglossian Notes

Come on, big coalition. Be quick. Bring sense. P.S. bring sens

I hope the opposition parties bring down Harper's conservative party government.

As it stands now I don't see how Parliament could be considered to have any faith in the current government. This is Harper's own fault and the disruption he and his finance minister, with his joke fiscal update, has inflected on Canada is not welcome by me as a citizen.

If he is dumped out next Monday, December 8th, and the GG has faith that the Liberals and New Democrats can form a working coalition I suspect he'll make an even nastier leader of the opposition than he did a prime minister. I also suspect his story line will be that power was stolen from HIM.

There are already traces of this silly reasoning in some comments to articles in the Globe & Mail and the TO Star.

Strange or confused people - I wonder if they may not be some of Harper's funky republican friends from the states - writing in that they didn't vote for either Dion or Layton as Prime Minister.

Well, of course, you didn't, you gooses, but neither did you vote for Harper, unless you had the misfortune to live in his Calgary riding and actually voted conservative. Prime Ministers in parliamentary democracies are just that, a first minister, no one votes for them. Here, it's just the one that gets to visit the GG after an election and inform her that he/she thinks his party has enough votes and can get Parliament's confidence to form a government.

Now they all like to take ceremonial notions into their heads and think they matter more than other ministers but in reality they don't when it comes down to it. Remember that Thatcher person that was unceremoniously dumped across the pond. I hear she now wanders around Battersea Park looking for a little doggy or something*.

I like to think that the last two conservative prime ministers Canada has had, have suffered from strong cases of POTUS envy.

Both Mulroney and Harper have loved to parade around in convoys of black SUVs desperately mimicking the US president's silliness. But, at least in the case of the POTUS he has some ceremonial function as the head of the US state or is it just the commander-in-chief that rates all those traffic jams and pompousness. Here, thankfully, the GG has the ceremonial duties, is the C-in-C and is quite modest with the trappings thingy.

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*Gordon Burn: Yes, the Mrs Thatcher thing is something that had been nagging at me for a long time. I happen to see Mrs Thatcher every so often when I'm walking my dog in Battersea Park, and I was very struck by the fact that most people didn't even seem to notice her or recognise her, whereas I would be and still am actually because she still goes...and every time I spot her I feel strangely electrified at the sight of this woman who was famously the Iron Lady...

Peter Mares: She commanded so much power, she had such a reputation and now here she is, sort of nothing really, and she is the future Tony Blair, in a sense. You write: 'One moment Blair was part of the national static, the next he's gone.'

Interview with Gordon Burn, author of Born Yesterday
The BookShow
ABC (the A is for Australia)

Technorati Tags: ABC, Canada, Confusing?, Democracy, Fresh air, great stuff, Politicians, Politics

More chaos?

Just before the media moves on to this coming weeks stories and we all forget about India, to become absorbed in the old/new Clinton melodramas with a "we can change" twist to update them for the new century, I thought I'd see if there was yet any clear indication about the Mumbai thing.

Not yet it would seem.

The death toll is approximately 200.

I haven't seen estimates of the injured but expect they maybe three or four times the number of deaths.

Most casualties are Indians and not Europeans or North Americans.

Still no indication of who or what may have been behind it though lots of speculation and lots and lots of opinion and opportunity for VSPs to pontificate - hey an unintended stimulus for a certain class in Western economies. I wonder what an opinionated VSP's marginal propensity to consume might be?

There are 2 estimates of the number of individuals who were involved in the various shoot-ups and grenade throwings: 10 from AP or 40 from The Guardian. Both media sources report the group was well trained*. A fact which seems to originate from observers like the photographer Sebastian D'Souza who followed one pair around - D'Souza's scoop is also part of the AP story noted above.

One gunman seems to have been captured and is currently in police hands which means, as we found out listening to CBC's Sunday Edition interview with Suketa Mehta, the poor bugger is being tortured. An art to which the Indian constabulary is known, according to Mehta, to be well adept - [**maybe Hillary could look into an American Indian cultural exchange as a first task].

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*Well trained - This compliment leaves me wondering whenever I hear or read it used to modify the impression of individuals or groups about whom there is little hard knowledge. It can be simply an impression from an observer unfamiliar with certain things thus someone who appears organized and determined looks "professional" "well trained". Or it can be used as a form of denial by professionals who are defeated by talented amateurs or have bungled their response to the amateurs. Of course, the modifier could also be correct. My favourite example of the denial approach to impressions came after Little Big Horn when rumours circulated (A & B) that Sitting Bull was actually a graduate of West point. How else, of course, could a group of First Nations defeat and kill Custer and all his men.

**This appositive at the end of the last sentence is likely too mean but I'm feeling little or no confidence in North American existing or potential governments so I'm leaving it in. But, maybe my dig should have been something along the lines of: [At least we know where certain well intended political and permanent officials, will be able to take a safe foreign holiday after January 20, 2009, as long as they are careful about refueling stop.]

Let the chaos continue, eh!

To me, I'm feeling particularly cold hearted today, the most interesting aspect of the Mumbai thing  has been the chaos surrounding the attacks, as demonstrated by the Indian Government's response, and, maybe more particularly, the media's breathless and hilarious coverage of the events.

Good thing the event came along as it has given the professionals in the news corporations something to write about other than giving thanks and wondering about turkeys both real and metaphoric.

A quick glance at headline news in papers and on TV, as events unfolded, indicated that 80, no 140, no 195 people of have been killed and many more injured. Everyone from jojo the dog face boy to Dawood Ibrahim has been linked to the "well planned and executed" attack - I can only surmise that the adjectives modifying attack have been added by newspaper and script writers to emphasize the "chaotic and bungled" counter-attack* by India's finest.

But one thing for sure, all the current villains are Pakistani or have links to Pakistan. This, of course, we, through the media, have on good faith from that group of characters in the USA that puzzle about what that great red ball might be that rises every morning in the Eastern sky - i.e. unnamed intelligence sources.

Good light entertainment if it weren't that real people have died and it would seem mostly Indian citizens and not Europeans or North Americans.

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*My favourite video clips were the "commandos" rappelling from the helicopter to the roof of the Jewish compound. Then this group standing in front of the windows into which they had just throw bags of percussion grenades and almost being swiped off the balcony by the blast. I wasn't sure whether I was watching a group of drunken bungees jumpers who had lost their way or the keystone cops updated with the latest sky-mask apparel so in vogue with government toughs.

Technorati Tags: A PLAN, Chaos, confusion, Lost, landlock pirates?, Pakistan again Pakistan and again Pakistan., Pirates?, Ah!, Snafu's?, Tedious

Keeping my head straight and

wondering if even before he gets the keys to 1600 he's not a "dud".

I bore easily, now, and haven't thought any of Obama's speeches were the great inspirationally trumpeted opuses heard by others.

One exception to that last statement, Obama's talk, to calm the situation after some citizens became upset by Jeremiah Alvesta Wright calling a spade a spade in mythology land, moved away from "The Speech" and put into context the real world in the middle of North America and, I think, was good.

But, as I wrote, I bore easily and I'm now tired of the preachy style of most of Obama's statements to buck up bankers and the red suspenders gang, all of whom I suspect of long histories of undetected crime.

We also know that the much ballyhooed change was and is only him and is more a vision than anything real. I guess it is sort of like a mirage? I hope he can stay awake the whole 4 years of his term to keep an eye on the tired old crew surrounding him and ensure they keep their eyes on the wavering image on the horizon.

Boy, "The Speech" should be pretty tattered an' torn by 2012.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that Obama isn't the disappointment he maybe on the road to ensuring, but, in the back of my head, I'm running "The Speech" through ways it can be changed to stand in for new variations of authenticity.

In the mean time Mr. Fish has a few notes on the situation to date:

Technorati Tags: Blindness, Deceiver???, Democracy, Politicians, Politics, POTUS

God the dodger giving advice,

shit we are in trouble if D.A.Dodge - aka DAD - is being picked up by the print media as having something to say about how to keep poor Canada from the bloody edge.

And what's DAD's advise, f@%king infrastructure investment.

Good, I guess, if time doesn't matter.

I do like infrastructure, particularly new stuff, and want to see major investments in the current North American wide mess - I include Mexico, our forgotten, at times, partner in our lovely continent - but, hey isn't there some transaction costs associated with using infrastructure as the main point of surging (I also like to use that word in a non-military context just to keep it alive outside dumbohaven, eh) to prevent a deep recession, deflation, liquidity trap, .... .

DAD must be without his normal set of briefing notes to advise him that it usually, at best, takes 6, 9, 12 months to draw up plans and to go through the biding process to get a shovel in the ground somewhere and thus a cheque to some dumb soul not an ex-economist or Finance or Bank type that may actually help the poor dumb country from tipping over some edge, eh.

Oh well his advise should be good enough for MBA types out of Western.

Oh the world is so so complex

I woke this morning listening to the, as usual, near hysterical Anna Maria Tremonti of the CBC's The Current.

This morning her opening lines included the brilliant statement that economist had been worried about inflation i.e. prices raising too far. Oh yeah. It would be nice if the CBC could at sometime hire voices that were connected to a brain that had a modicum of basic sense and knew the difference between a stock and flow. It seems now Tremonti has figured out that economist are thinking about deflation i.e. prices falling too far.

Oh the world is so complex.

Nick Rowe, over at a Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, has an interesting little note on the measuring of the concept of deflation.

Incidentally, The Current had on another brilliant mind, from a bank I think, I didn't catch the name as I was in the process of making coffee, who assured Tremonti that the talented minds surrounding Obama, least with Christina Romer, someplace in Chicago and Bernanke holding down the fort in Washington should have sufficient knowledge of the past to keep us all safe from a 1930's style liquidity trap and the 10 lost years of a Japanese type scenario.

I guess the assumption is that Canada is a de-facto US state. Also Tremonti forgot to ask why it took 10 years for the Japanese economy to start to inflate again if everyone knew how to pump it up.

Oh the world is so complex.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Curious, Duh we like hockey, Economics

Curious turns of phrase?

A curious turn of phrase is likely one of the more generous ways of describing these following two public statements.

The first statement:

"I'm embarrassed for our Catholic ratepayers who had to go through all of this"

Trustee Barbara Poplawski
November 14, 2008

The second statement:

“From the fullness of my heart, I personally apologize on behalf of my family and me. These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family.”

Rahm Emanuel
November 13, 2008

The trustee's comment was prompted by the "scandal" and ongoing investigation of the Toronto Catholic District School Board expense accounts. The Ernest & Young reconciliation (for interest but in pdf format) of some trustees' shenanigans has now been handed over to the TO police to investigate.

Emanuel's, Chief of Staff for the US President elect, statement follows on his father's reference to "Arabs" as, at best and to be charitable to the old man, maybe permanent janitorial staff in the Whitehouse.

Both statements seem to me crafty ways of dealing with fiascos tied to you by association or blood; both confusing to me; and both begging follow-up questions from whomever took the dictation.

Technorati Tags: Bullshit??, Confusing?

Trouble for the boy from Timmins?

Bloombergs reported last Thursday (h/t Brad DeLong) that:

"Platinum Grove Asset Management LP, the hedge-fund firm co-founded by Nobel laureate Myron Scholes, temporarily stopped investor withdrawals from its biggest fund after it lost 29 percent in the first half of October.

Wow, first Shania Twain gets divorced and now, Myron's follow up to Long-Term Capital Management LP, seems to be struggling.

Boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Twanging with Twain always easy and certainly not as difficult as mastering Black-Scholes but, more importantly, do these two events mean that the values of some Canadian small towns are shot?

Is Ontario, the most populous place in the country, doomed to never again produce a new country (an' western) star or a mathematical economist whiz kid?

Is this because Ontario is now a "have-not" province under the definitions of the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act?

Too much to think about, time for more strong coffee, I guess, or a bowl of chicken soup, maybe.

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Oops, I likely should have noted that both Shania and Myron are originally from a place in what we Southerns call Northern Ontario i.e. Timmins.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Chaos

Stories from the North - real culture wars

Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) clashing with modern approaches in determining wildlife population sizes, or reaction to a potential decision effecting a real subsistence economy from the outside?

Polar bear hunting quota stays put in Nunavut's Baffin Bay

"Hunters in Nunavut's Baffin Bay region will be able to kill up to 105 polar bears this season, after the territory's environment minister agreed to leave the quota unchanged, despite concerns from officials about overhunting.

"Combined harvest in the Baffin Bay should not exceed about 90 animals, and presently with the combined harvest from Nunavut and Greenland, it's 176," Drikus Gissing, Nunavut's director of wildlife management, told CBC News on Tuesday.

"So it's a significant overharvesting that's taking place in this population."

... dozens of hunters from Pond Inlet, Clyde River and Qikiqtarjuaq told the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board that the polar bear population in Baffin Bay is on the rise, not decreasing.

The hunters also argued that the government's bid to reduce the polar bear hunt was based on outdated information.

I know individuals, all qallunaats, who have simply cut the collar off dogs left tied and starving outside within a community, not qamutik dogs, and sent them down South in fury that this problem is not dealt with in the North.

Animal abuse in Nunavut prompt calls for animal protection laws

"Recent cases of animal abuse have some in Nunavut, including a former mayor of Iqaluit and the city's chief enforcement officer, calling for an animal protection act.

"The time has come for the [legislative assembly], once they're back in business, to set up a bylaw or an ordinance for the protection of animals," said former Iqaluit mayor Bryan Pearson, who was recently bitten by a severely neglected dog he had found tied up outside its owner's house.

Pearson said he dug out the dog, which he said was frozen to the ground in its own urine and feces and could no longer use its hind legs. The distressed dog bit Pearson when he brought it home to clean it up.

Has the great bear's ability to reproduce increased or are some being forced North by something changing, maybe around Churchill?

Arviat invaded by roaming polar bears

"Residents in the central Nunavut hamlet of Arviat say they can do little but watch as an unusually high number of polar bears roam through their community.

Bears started roaming last week around Arviat, a hamlet of about 2,000, prompting local RCMP, firefighters, bylaw officers and Canadian Rangers to patrol the community's perimeter every night.

That hasn't deterred the invading polar bears, however. Mayor Johnny Mamgark told CBC News the bears are not responding to common deterrents, such as flares, bear bangers, or even gunshots fired in the air.

"All my life I've been here, and I've never seen so many polar bears coming right into town," Mamgark said in an interview.

From the First GN (Government of Nunavut) Legislative Assembly 1999 - 2004, Davidee Iqaqrialu, from Qikiqtarjuaq, ask a question and provides some background information:

Speaker: Oral Questions. Oral Questions. Mr. Iqaqrialu.
Question 106 – 1(6): Location of Mineral Discoveries (pdf)

Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was falling asleep. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to direct this question to the Minister responsible for Sustainable
Development about these reports that he tabled with all these nice photographs.

Answer

Mr. Iqaqrialu (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am starting to get hot under
the collar, but I’ll try to make it clear; it is not really related to the question that I posed,
but this is background material. Inuit had reached the moon quite some time ago during
the shamanistic ages, prior to the Americans reaching it with their machines and finding
out it wasn’t what they thought it was. Those are the types of things that I’m talking
about, non physical discoveries.

Looking at the pictures and the maps in this document, it’s got symbols of men and other
things within the applications. Do those little symbols identify where there’s been a
discovery, or are they just symbolic? They don’t state what kinds of minerals that have
been discovered, due to all the competition, I know that, but I would like to know how
this will be dealt with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Answer

Technorati Tags: Arctic, Canada, Cultural clashes?, Inuit, Polar Bears

Lecture season: The Massey and Boyer Lectures

I know lectures go on all the time and everywhere, however two of my favourite series are the Massey's and Boyer's, one Canadian and the other Australian. The Canadian one is to start tonight and run for 5 nights in a row while the Australian one has already started.

This year Margaret Atwood is giving the Canadian series and, I'm surprised, Rupert Murdoch is giving  the Australian series.

Now if the CBC would simply spring for the sponsorship of Vincent's Lectures, I wouldn't have to schedule a session using  WireTape to make sure I don't miss Payback, the name of this years series.

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) podcasts the Boyer so no change of missing Rupert's ideas.

Technorati Tags: ABC, Australia, Boyer Lectures, Canada, CBC, Massey Lectures