Nullius in Verba

Some more good news below which you won’t hear on CBC but first I must rant.

Imagine if you told your friend you’d help him fix his car, took apart his car, and then buggered off to the beach leaving the bits of car lying around the yard because you got tired. 

I am generally not in favor of going into other countries and trying to fix things since in the long run its probably a waste of money, may not be wanted by the people themselves, in the long run may lead to dependency (Africa?), and there may be some legitimacy in the argument of where does an intervention begin or end?

Take up the White Man’s burden–
The savage wars of peace–
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

-Rudyard Kipling

That being said we have a moral obligation to Afghanistan now that we went in and took it apart. The same way our cousins to the south have an obligation to Iraq.

(Occasionally some people take a moral stand regardless of the risk of death and make things better for everyone, like Martin Luther here. This event at the Diet of Worms produced woodcuts for rapid duplication and distribution of the “Here I Stand” message on a primitive press by the forebearers of our current media [I discuss them previously here]. Even back then the media sensationalizes as the “Here I Stand” quote was simply a reduction of Luther’s speech and never actually stated.)

The media have done a bang up job of correctly counting the number of poor individuals who have died or been seriously injured during our time in Afghanistan. What they haven’t done is do a decent jop of speaking about how things have changed. But really what do you expect when the leading story is a helicopter crash between two news-copters following a mundane car chase? 

Personally I cannot remember the last time I watched CTV or CBC for news on Afghanistan or Iraq, its a big waste of my time. All they report is the big explosions, and the terrorists/criminals know this and it encourages them to try and outdo their previous body counts. Luckily the people in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be turning on criminal groups like Al Queda (Bin Laden was first and foremost a drug smuggler making up to billions selling opium). Intelligent people predicted that the citizens and militia would turn on Al Queda and other criminal elements because most sane people don’t like seeing their friends and children getting blown to tiny bits every day. Moreover it appears good rule of law applied equally and unbiased is something third world people appreciated which is why they come to tribe America or Canada vs their own corrupt or ineffective police when they have a problem. In fact according to Michael Yon, an indie who was the first to report that there was a civil war brewing in Iraq, the “Surge” is actually working.

The number of other people in North America who feel this way about the media is likely increasing as well, since the popularity of and viability through private donation to independent journalists seems to be increasing. I routinely check the sites of several, and have donated to them as well. What makes these independents interesting and credible is that they are devoted to telling a detailed and comprehensive story by embedding themselves for up to months or even years in the actual event they are covering instead of the fly-by-night reporting of, say, Associated Press. For those who aren’t familiar with some of these independent journalists (indie) I’ll list some of my favorites, and I invite you to check them out:

• Michael Yon (I linked some of my favorite recent threads above.)
• Bill Roggio
• Michael J. Totten
• Omar and Mohammed

Anyhow I got this tid-bit in my email bin today, some people may enjoy hearing some more good news. Either way, its evident that if Jack Layton were leading Canada instead of Stephen Harper this good new wouldn’t be happening.

Substantial Improvements Achieved in Afghanistan’s Health Sector

Results from assessments conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Indian Institute of Health Management Research show substantial improvements in the health status of the people of Afghanistan after decades of conflict. From 2004 to 2006, the health system has shown improvement for many key measures in a majority of provinces. These results demonstrate that improvements in health service delivery have been achieved across the country in a short period of time, according to the researchers. The results from the assessments were presented to the Ministry of Public Health in June.

“The delivery of public health service is improving steadily in Afghanistan as the Ministry of Public Health makes progress towards meeting its goals,” said principal investigator Gilbert Burnham, MD, professor of international health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response. “Despite these gains, health facilities in Afghanistan have room for improvement in several areas.”

The researchers utilized the Balanced Scorecard—a tool designed to rapidly measure key components of basic health services—to measure and manage public health services countrywide.

For 2006, the Afghanistan Health Sector Balanced Scorecard showed continued performance improvements in health facilities across the country. Driving these advances were increased availability of essential drugs and family planning supplies, improved quality of patient care, increased provision of antenatal care to pregnant women, upgraded skills among health workers, increases in the number of female health workers providing care throughout the country and relatively high levels of patient satisfaction.

According to the 2006 assessment, more female patients than male patients used outpatient services, and the poor were more likely to use public sector services than the non-poor, which is in line with the Ministry of Public Health’s stated goal for equitable health care. Additionally, household surveys implemented by researchers from Johns Hopkins and the Indian Institute of Health Management Research in late 2006 estimated that of every 1,000 children born in Afghanistan, on average 129 die in the first year of life (infant mortality rate) and 191 die before reaching the age of five years (under 5 mortality rate). The surveys covered more than 8,200 households in rural areas in 29 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Previous estimates from UNICEF for the year 2000 place the infant mortality rate in Afghanistan at 165 per one thousand live births and the under 5 mortality rate at 257 per one thousand live births.

The percentage of women in rural Afghanistan receiving antenatal care during pregnancy from a skilled provider increased from an estimated 4.6 in 2003 to 32.2 in 2006. Over the same time period, the percentage of women in rural Afghanistan who had a doctor, nurse or midwife assist with their last delivery increased from 6.0 to 18.9.

More children are receiving vital childhood immunizations, according to the assessments. The percentage of children 12-23 months of age in rural Afghanistan who received the BCG vaccine to protect against tuberculosis increased from an estimated 56.5 in 2003 to 70.2 in 2006. The percentage of children 12-23 months of age in rural Afghanistan who received the full dosage of oral polio vaccine increased to 69.7 in 2006, from 29.9 in 2003.

The researchers found improvement was needed in the management of tuberculosis treatment, laboratory services, reaching women for care during pregnancy and delivery, and health workers spending a sufficient amount of time with each patient.

“While deaths of infants and children under age five in Afghanistan remain high and the level of coverage of health services is still below the ideal, these results indicate that substantial progress has been made in improving the health of the people of Afghanistan since 2003,” said Burnham.

The assessments were funded by the Ministry of Public Health through grants from the World Bank.

Public Affairs media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health: Tim Parsons or Kenna Lowe at 410-955-6878 or paffairs@jhsph.edu.

Sounds like its the perfect time to cut and run right?

Today we are going to discuss why people like Maude Barlow Jack Layton should stay the same distance from economics as a whale should from a desert.

Both look stupid out there.

If there is one word socialists love to hang around their necks, its the word “fair”. They love that word. In fact the simple use of the word can bring at least ten of them into the semblence of a rally at almost a moment’s notice.

Science doesn’t understand the word fair. In fact I don’t think I can come up with any word in science that approximates it. Scientific theory is reason and logic. Do genes say to each other, “Man you’re doing all the work, that’s not fair, its about time the polymerase transcribed me?” No.

Does evolution use fairness in deciding which species becomes extinct, and which traits are inherited? Nope.

Socialists however love fairness. Fairness to them is this utopia where everyone is happy even the street graffiti. In reality fairness under socialist regimes means that money gets stolen from hard working people and transferred to the socialist’s little empires of concern including the bank accounts of their lefty friends.

(Is Justice Based on Fairness or Facts?)

Economics is a science and it doesn’t understand the word fair.

My friend, Darrell, hardly a socialist symbiot mentioned the use of the word in a comment and of course brought out the raging economist in me.

I think I’d be much happier with corporations if there weren’t subsidies and tax breaks for any of the industries. Of course, this would have to be implemented pretty much globally…. Now, the consumers may end up having to pay full price for things, but the corporations would be paying fair share for “living” in a country. I do think it’s kind of neat that a corporation is considered an entity… albeit a mentally-deficient entity that someone, somewhere still needs to claim responsiblity for. So these entities share the resources of a country and so should pay for them too… I know most companies do pay, though not so sure about a fair share - we still have a high rate (36.1%) but we’re better than the states (40%)… but that does compare to a top earners rate (in BC) of about 43%. A benefit of paying full cost for goods is that consumption may actually decrease - and longer lasting products would probably be preferred. 

Darrell makes two effective points. One is that subsidies of select industries and tax breaks (just a subsidy in disguise) really end up selecting out losers and often end up creating failures out of once profitable industries. The argument can also be made at least at the municipal level that corporations should face some sort of taxation as they end up using factors of production from municipalities, ie: sewage, transportation. Ironically municipalities are also corporations and so it makes some sort of quasi-sense.

With all due respect to Darrel, who is a good scientist, there is no such thing as “fair” in reference to corporate taxes. Rather corporate tax schemes are on a holistic sense simply another government revenue source. Moreover and tragically, it is politics on a fundamental level that has defined corporate tax rates in the majority of countries, believe it or not, and not economic theory. Ask an economist what is a fair tax rate and he’ll stare at you blankly because the point of a tax is what your objective goals are, not a subjective goal of fairness. Subjective goals simply harm people and have unintended consequences. 

Unfortunately Maude Barlow and Jack Layton are a reflection of the thoughts a lot of people have been told to believe. Somehow there is a fair tax out there waiting to be discovered.

Whereas in the 1960s, Canadian citizens and business contributed 50-50 to tax revenues collected, today Canadian citizens account for 92 percent of all tax revenues. Business contributes only 8 percent. - Says Maude as if any of what she is saying is scientific.

For all you budding theives out there who want to work for the government machine as a politician, I’ll lay out two examples of basic corporate tax strategy for you to ponder from a scientific point of view.

The First Strategy is called “Getting as Much as You Can“. If the point of your tax strategy is to raise the highest revenue from corporate taxes then consider the Laffer Curve. This principle of economics has been known of for a long time, but was put into popular use by Arthur Laffer, an economist of note during the Reagan years. (Don’t worry all you leftbot conspiracy wingbutts, Dick Cheney WAS actually involved with this.) The Laffer curve basically states that an increase in the tax rate will raise tax revenue up to a certain point, at which tax revenue falls due to decreasing incentive to work. An extreme example is a 100% tax rate, at which point no one would work because there would be no return from it. The Laffer curve is limited in the scope of economic growth and likely is influenced by a third factor, time, but this has not been well studied. For income taxes in countries like Canada and US the tax rate likely is not high enough to approach the peak and be on the right side of the curve. There is some evidence in countries with a high income tax like Sweden that they are on the right side of the curve (Note: Sweden has a low corporate tax rate).

There is some evidence though, that in an open world economy a small market country (like Canada) faces the constraints of a Laffer curve in regards to corporate tax rates.

(Click to enlarge)

The optimal rate for revenue maximization appears to be 33%. Why might this be so? Kimberly Clausing states that:

Corporations respond to taxation in several ways. First, corporations may simply reduce their overall economic activity due to the tax disincentive. Such a response implies a resulting loss of national (and world) income.

Second, corporations may reduce real investments in high-tax locations in favor of investments in low-tax locations. While this response may reduce world income somewhat due to a sub-optimal allocation of capital, the loss of income would be less than in the first response.

Third, firms may undertake the same real investments in each location, but increase the shifting of income across locations through transfer price manipulation and other techniques. Such actions need not affect the magnitude of real economic activity across countries, although the measurement and reporting of that activity would change. Finally, even domestic firms can respond to increases in tax rates by increasing tax avoidance efforts, and such efforts can take many forms.

All types of responsiveness would generate the downward portion of the parabolas charted in this paper.

The problem with “Getting as Much as You Can” is that one can often kill the golden goose, hence the Second Strategy is called “Not Shooting Yourself in the Head While Doing It“. It is generally accepted that higher corporate tax rates lead to decreased economic growth over the long run. There are many theories that account for this, for example lower corporate taxes may encourage increased capital spending or investment in training. Young Lee and Roger Gorden show that the decrease in corporate taxes is an incentive to invest personal income into entrepreneurial activity. From studying 70 countries, they calculate that a reduction in the corporate tax rate by 10 percentage points can result in an increase in economic growth by 1.1%. Contrary to what left-bots like the esteemed economist David Sukuzi think, economic growth, not subsidies, is what helps poor people get wealthy. Ellen McGrattan and Edward Prescott show that decreasing corporate taxes directly leads to increasing corporate equity and value. Thus investments such as retirement portfolios are much better off. So if you’re one of those crazy people who wants to get a job and put money away for retirement then corporate taxes are a bad thing. In fact you’d probably want corporate taxes to be 0% (Where it should be).

So we’re really in a bind here, on one hand the government wants to get as much as it can, but doesn’t want to shoot itself in the head while doing it. Luckily these factoids don’t seem to trouble the government or general population that much as corporate tax rates are set on a mostly political basis. (Except for the last decision the Conservative made on income trusts.) At the end of the day, greedy Daddy Warbucks needs to pay.

Because its all his fault. And that’s what we call fair.

(With One Sign, Stephane “Dat’s Not Fair” Dion, Sums Up His Knowledge of Economics and Shows Us How Much Money We’ll Have Left on Our PayChecks When He’s In Charge.)

I have been a union shop steward in more than one union. I have been involved in unions, hung around enough unionists, and moreover now that I am occasionally forced to practice medicine, I have handed out more than my share of “get out of work for spurious medical reason” forms than I ever should.

(In truth, it was the free flow of capital, investment, property rights, capitalism and mercantilism that has done more for the common peasant then Karl Marx, Unions, government or any other pretender.)

In my honest opinion about 1 out of 50 grievances are valid. Maybe less. Quite honestly some people deserve a frigging boot to their lazy hides.

I’ll put it this way. I have no problem with people forming a monopoly in order to bargain for higher wages or changes in their workplace. BUT employers should be able to fire them all if they want to and hire new people. If your skills are worth something, employers won’t be so eager to fire you off. And honestly for the most part I have found employers reasonable people.

In fact unions are such a waste of time these days that they actively seek obscure issues to mobilize around because in reality they have nothing better to do. The great majority of people in a union are apathetic and therefore the union leadership gets taken over by busy-bodies who love raising stink and trying to be more important than they really are.

So in the end union leaders tend to be either one of two types. A busy-body of self importance or a thief who is trying to steal as much as he can from other member’s paychecks. Or both. The lackies who attend union meetings are the kind of people who fit into the above categories but aren’t quite able to clamber to the top of the dung heap yet. 

At a union meeting I once said that one way we could increase our employee’s wages is by lowering our union dues. I’ll tell you the blank stares of disbelief I received were worth it. Or the other time when our teacher’s union was trying to “make a bold statement in defence of Palestine and in condemnation of Israel” I said that there were quite a few members who were Jewish in our union and that perhaps we should consider only relavent issues pertaining to employer and workplace in order not to uneccesarily ostracize other members. Whew.

I kind of liked to imagine myself at that time as a sort of Deep Throat or Voice of Conciousness within the union. In reality I was probably just more of a big prick. But there is no more firm a believer than one who was once an anthiest.

I was once a socialist but when I saw the light, it was bright and it showed socialism for the dirty thing it is.

Socialism is racism, it’s modern day Nazism. It discriminates, condemns groups of people, sets societal norms, dictates to the media, controls and corrupts politicians, employers, and people. And it tells lies about utopia to hide its true objectives: putting power into the hands of a select group of people. Racism you ask? Is hiring people based on color anything but racism? Is keeping groups of people on aparthied like slabs of soil not racism?

One thing socialism does well, which parallels Nazism in an extraordinary manner (Read Hitler’s Scientists) is to infect Universities and chase out voices of reason by hiring those who fit their political standard. John Cornwell does a great job of showing that while not only did Hitler appoint politico hacks as Department heads, there were many Nazis and those of like mind within the universities already. The 1930’s were a different time in some ways. If you don’t think so, read Tommy Douglas’ Master’s thesis sometime. The one where he argues that poor people should be sterilized. Remember also that Nazism involved state control of production in ways similar to socialism, not capitalism like some socialists seem to want one to think.

When I first saw that the Britain’s University and College Union (UCU) enact a motion to boycot any Israeli university seminar, meeting, journal, and scientist/academic I though to myself wow boy that sure is myopic and typical of bored unions with nothing better to do but sit on their ivory tower jobs. But I forgot about it like most people tend to do.

So why is a university professor’s union doing this? Well to solve the problem with the Palestinians not having a country, naturally. Why is this myopic? Because the reason the Palestinians don’t have a country (they do have one) has a lot to do with it being their own fault lately, especially since the Palestinians receive more aid per capita than any other nation yet manage to elect stupid leaders like Arafat who steal most of this money and fund gangs of terrorist that kill their own people. Palestinians kill many more Palestinians than Israelis do. Under pressure from the United States Israel has made many accomodations and appears ready to make more. The Palestinians from the start have been the bouncing-ball plaything of the national goals of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia since Israel first clawed itself into a nation. An objective look quickly demonstrates who has hurt these people more. (Before the second intifada for which Arafat held a high degree of blame, a peace existed where 20 percent of Palestinians went to work in Israel daily and the Palestinian GNP grew at 5% a year).

My favorite part of Stephanie Gutmann’s book, “The Other War: Israelis Palestinians and the Struggle for Media Supremacy” in her chapter, Travels With Faraj were these lines which sum up pretty much the entire problem. She’s speaking with a common Palestinian shop owner, a nice guy who she describes as wanting a variety of things just like the rest of us.

The proprietor soon had a new, seemingly “saved up” question for the Westerner who had landed in his restaurant: “Why do the Americans hate the Palestinians?” he demanded.

“Our government doesn’t hate the Palestinians,” I said. “They support an independent state next to Israel. They send money to the Palestinians, millions a year. Why do you think they hate the Palestinians?”

“Because they do no kill Arafat,” he stated matter-of-factly. “They don’t like Saddam; they go get Saddam. So why not Arafat?”

Given the news accounts had recently been full of heads of state and such calling Arafat “the personification of the ideals of the Palestinian people,” I groped for the words for a few seconds, and then stated carefully: “I think… the Americans believe… that Arafat is your guy; that you elected him; that he speaks for you… ”

“He is a crook and a thief,” the proprietor interjected.

Anyhow, does the UCU expect that every Israeli is going to commit self immolation in order to resolve this issue because a bunch of university professors expect them to based upon their myopic view of things? Israel contributes much to scientific literature, and it’s a democratic country where each person gets one vote including the non Jews who become members of their parliament. It’s a Middle Eastern country most intellectual liberals should be proud of.

Well there’s nothing like insanity to fuel the flame of irrelevance. With a smug backhanded blow from the ammunition of the press release, my Queens University stated that they deplore the actions of the UCU.

is antithetical to the core value of academic freedom, which is cherished by Queen’s and other universities around the world.

Freedom of inquiry and expression carries with it responsibilities – to encourage open debate and dialogue, and to listen to and learn from the views of others. We must defend these freedoms of speech and inquiry even as we engage with those whose views may differ greatly from our own. Contemporary society calls for leadership that respects but can also bridge social, cultural, economic and geopolitical divides. I therefore denounce the actions of the UCU and absolutely reject its approach.

Those of us who devote ourselves to the learning and discovery that characterizes the academy must defend the freedom of individuals to study, teach and carry out research without fear of harassment, intimidation or discrimination.

Accordingly, I join with many of my colleagues in stating that, if the British UCU pursues its ill-advised course, we will have no choice but to add Queen’s University ­and many other universities around the world ­ to its boycott list. We are proud to align ourselves with those  who deplore the UCU’s unacceptable attack on the values and principles that define us.

Of course they say one thing. But do another. Queens wants to select more minority admissions so we can all pat ourselves on the back about how progressive we are. Like minorities cannot decide for themselves where they’d like to go in Canada so we have to tell them.

These socialists. If there is one thing that the Middle East has given to universities that the academics want to recognize, instead of the actual historic scientific contribution from the East, is the keffiyeh. These socialists all around the university wear the traditional male arabic headress around their necks in the form of a protest against anything western and in support of Palestine because, I suppose, Arafat wore one. What they don’t want to recognize is that western  culture stands for democracy, human rights, liberties, property rights, peace, tolerance, secularism etc. The only thing I think these gangs in Palestine stand for is terrorism, thievery, chauvanism, religious fanatacism, and indiscriminate death. They keep proving it. These Imams are so revered that if they issued a fatwah on how killing people is satanic, the Middle East would probably be as peaceful as downtown Mariposa. So why don’t they?

The worst thing is that the very gangs like Hamas that these UCU folks support, would in a minute turn on their supporters and cull them for being apostates.

(The woman in the top photo wears a keffiyeh “in support” of Palestine at a rally, meanwhile the guy holding the sign up at the bottom is saying what every socialist there is thinking. In reality the gangs they are supporting, like Hamas, are simply criminals who couldn’t give a damn about human rights. hat tip zombietime)

Remember when a bunch of rock musicians got together and solved third world poverty? (Most of the money was stolen by corrupt Ethiopian politicians, and there is good evidence some was used by thugs to forcefully oppress several hundred thousand people.) Heck, forget about free trade, capital markets, democracy, property rights, civil order, and global investment - lets just transfer a bunch of money to them and they’ll be all right.

After all subsidies have been working for the natives in North America, fishers in the Atlantic, car producers in Windsor, and forestry mills in BC for years. Right? Nope, this little economic truth called rent seeking means all that money has been flowing into the hands of thieves and lawyers for years.

Why the heck, me included, are people so willing to pay money to screw themselves?

(In Western culture, foolish gluttony is often represented by a continually growing Leviathan that is difficult to kill)

Real scientists ask questions, and are rarely willing to go on TV and make broad ranging statements. Scientists tend to be cautious and always re-evaluate the evidence.

Thats why when respected researchers like Roger A. Pielke, a climatologist with hundreds of papers in climate journals makes statements like:

In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the IPCC Reports, the CCSP Report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of CO2 relative to the role of the diversity of other human climate climate forcing on global warming, and more generally, on climate variability and change.

Or William Gray, who said:

Gray acknowledges that we’ve had some warming the past 30 years. “I don’t question that,” he explains. “And humans might have caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But this warming trend is not going to keep on going. My belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will start to cool again, as it did from the middle ’40s to the middle ’70s.”

And Richard Lindzen (an author of IPCC 1 who withdrew from what he calls quackery) and Chris Landsea (who withdrew from IPCC 4 because it was too politicized and not scientific) and so on.

I tend to believe these scientists over people with no credibility like David Suzuki or Al Goreacle. Now don’t get me wrong, Pielke, for example, believes in climate change on a local level due to anthropogenic effects and that is what his research is focused on. What he stresses is that we really don’t know what we are talking about on the global picture. I think he’s right on there.

(Watch this commercial and tell me why Suzuki isn’t telling people to shut off their wasteful outside lights, instead of recommending bulb changes. This just sums up their mentality - simply dumb)

The IPCC has been infiltrated by horrible politicos, bent on only one thing - transferring wealth. The real goal of Kyoto is to transfer money to third world countries in the form of imaginary CO2 credits. I mean even if we followed Kyoto to the nuttiest of its conclusions we’d only be reducing the increase in theoretical global warming by 0.2 degrees. Its like throwing a 2 cm piece of Black and Decker fridge ice into a volcano. It isn’t doing anything.

The reality is the IPCC conclusions are constantly being challenged. When some IPCC scientists that have signed the document have asked to have their names removed, and some have quit the organization altogether one should start to some raise flags of one’s own. Especially when scientists left because they felt science was becoming political.

A recent article in the journal, Science, points how how flawed the computer generated projections likely are, and more insidiously, how ad hoc they may be.

But the group of three atmospheric scientists–Charlson; Stephen Schwartz of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York; and Henning Rodhe of Stockholm University, Sweden–says the close match between models and the actual warming is deceptive. The match “conveys a lot more confidence [in the models] than can be supported in actuality,” says Schwartz.

To prove theirpoint, the commentary authors note the range of the simulated warmings, that is, the width of the purple band. The range is only half as large as they would expect it to be, they say, considering the large range of uncertainty in the factors driving climate change in the simulations. Greenhouse-gas changes are well known, they note, but not so the counteracting cooling of pollutant hazes, called aerosols. Aerosols cool the planet by reflecting away sunlight and increasing the reflectivity of clouds. Somehow, the three researchers say, modelers failed to draw on all the uncertainty inherent in aerosols so that the 20th-century simulations look more certain than they should.

Just as flawed are the new Live Earth concerts. A bunch of musicians are going to travel the world releasing tons of CO2 putting on a concert to tell everyone to stop releasing CO2. This is not much different, except on a larger scale, to David Suzuki’s recent tour across Canada in a gas guzzling tour bus used simply for his own comfort. We’re all going to pay to see it, releasing even more CO2. This series of concerts could themselves release more CO2 than many third world nations.

(Genesis on Stage. What would Suzuki and Ontario Hydro say about all those bulbs?)

This planet has ranged from friggin hot to not over milennia. Moreover there is a lot we don’t know.

Update:

Another CTV poll gone horribly wrong, as in not the way they wanted it to go. Usually they leave their polls up so that about 10000 people can vote, but they stopped this one quickly.

This thread is dedicated to fellow blogger Carlo because, well he’ll understand.

Oh also to My Fellow Americans, Happy Bday.

Decima Research groups has come out with another poll:

The Canadian Press-Decima Research survey suggests that 60 per cent of Canadians believe God had either a direct or indirect role in creating mankind, shattering the myth that Canadians had long ago put their faith strictly behind the scientific explanation for creation.

(Amen)

Now economists will tell you that polls are only as good as the price you’ll pay. In other words while 91% of Canadians have been told to believe that Global Warming is the next Global Disaster and that money should be spent doing something about it, when it comes down to it not many people are actually willing to pay anything out of their pockets. Which means they don’t really believe it. Polls really just measure what people would like, not what they are willing to do or would do.

(Noah, like St. Al Goreacle saved the world)

However what I just loved from this poll is this pricey comment:

Conservatives were more likely than Liberals to say that God had no part in the process, and Alberta, regarded as the birthplace of social conservatism, had one of the lowest levels of beliefs for strict creationism at 22 per cent.

As has been well documented, this is because conservatives are more intellectual, often basing their actions on evidence rather than liberals who tend to base their actions on how much they can steal for themselves.

But as I have always said, their just isn’t much difference between Americans and Canadians, except most Canadians have an irrational hatred of Americans and most Americans think Canada is funny. Sometimes just saying “Canada” in the US makes people laugh. Likely because of what these guys started:

(Canadian Humour When it was Funny)

Unfortunately, but predictably in this nation of government institutionalized divisiveness and labelling (so much so that we have an apartheid system of separating people into reserves) another poll finds that most Canadians don’t even feel like they are Canadian. 

But seriously, in the month of June, when “Two Nations of a Common Mother” celebrate their respective birthdays, is one much richer, successful and flamboyant brother heading into bankruptcy while the other brother living a simpler life is dulling his brain on the BBQ of mediocrity?

When I heard this woman: Andrea Mandel-Campbell on CBC, none-the-less, state that “Maude Barlow is part of the problem.” I almost fell out of the shower. For the first time in a long time, someone has actually said it like it is. The Emperor has no clothes. And the stupid interviewer on CBC was speechless.

Mandel-Campbell just published her book, “Why Mexicans Don’t Drink Molson”. It was a good read. This should be required reading in all high schools, rather than Al Goreacle’s movie. Her thesis, after interviewing multiple Canadian business leaders and politicians, is that Canada is mediocre because of Subsidies to business, Protectionism of our industries, and a failure to enter the Multinational stage. It has bred a generation of mediocre businessmen who cannot compete in the world market. And a government (namely Chretien’s) that made us with out “Team Canada” expeditions a laughing stock amongst players in the world market.

This is not a remarkable. Back in the old days the Reform Party used to often mention to the reception of glazed stares and dull interviewers, the fact that Canada has a productivity problem. Scott Brison, a Liberal who often seems out of place since he really isn’t a Liberal, mentioned this in his speech or debate (I cannot remember, the whole 48 hours was a blur to me at most times) at the past Liberal convention and was also met with dull stares. Stephen Harper has said it multiple times in his past but no longer says it now because he’d be labelled as hating Canada again.

The Conference Board of Canada, using OECD data, rates Canada as mediocre with extremely poor ratings in the areas of innovation. Report Card is here. (Now I have some issues with the Report Card, especially on the use of certain markers such as infant mortality as benchmarks for health.)

The problem is serious. It is much more serious than any other of the so-called problems because this problem will actually affect our ability to pay for the things we like. Such as jobs.

But no-one cares.

Or do they? The Harper government has been secretly making several free trade deals with other countries. This is something Mandel-Campbell points out as one of Canada’s failures on the world stage and the inept nature of previous governments - so much so that businessmen from other countries are actually laughing when they hear “Canada”. But not because we export humor.