Archive for December, 2008
US still hates gays…
In an unsurprising - and selfish - move the United States has decided that it should still have to right to criminalize the mere existence of homosexuality. The reason the US delegation put forward for not supporting the declaration is that as the federal government they are not legally aloud to contravene laws of individual [...]
More clueless bureaucrats in the UK
Given the recent lack of posts making fun of UK bureacrats I’ve decided to do an omnibus edition to catch up. Here is a round up of pettiness from the past two weeks.
The Hampshire County Council decided that the tinsel adorning the stop sign of a lollipop man should be removed in case it distracts [...]
Why you shouldn’t trust forecasts…
…but, you need them anyway. A simple example showing why financial market forecasts aren’t worth much except in terms of historical forensics.
Recently TD Bank suggests that oil prices will be 30USD in the 2nd quarter of 2009.
In their prior forecast they suggested that the price would be closer to 45USD.
In a report on agriculture from [...]
Terrorism and lessons from Dubai
Short post since all the good content is on Bruce Schneier’s site.
In the latest Cryptogram, Bruce Schneier puts together 3 short articles on things we should keep in mind after the terror attacks in Mumbai. My favorites are:
Low-tech is very effective. Movie-plot threats — terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists with biological agents, terrorists targeting our [...]
Economic Manhattan Project or simple creative destruction?
In the latest Edge newsletter is an article proposing and discussing an economic Manhattan Project where a group of good scientists would get together and “solve” the current economic crisis. On the surface this doesn’t sound completely bad when the initial description is:
The economic crisis has to be stabilized immediately. This has to be carried [...]
US Libertarians demonstrate why they are unelectable
An article titled The Left-Libertarian vs. Right-Libertarian Controversy is a clear example the kind nitpicking that makes the US libertarian movement marginal.
Libertarianism is generally defined as individualism, with clear property rights and minimal (but not zero) government - and is clearly an antonym of authoritarianism. A pretty simple definition. Getting into the line between left [...]
New Toronto trash service offers higher incentive to cheat
In caring, kind Toronto, if you want your garbage picked up, you need to place it in city mandated grey bins or you need to have it labelled with city-issued garbage tags. If neither of these is done, you can’t expect your trash to be collected. Additionally home owners must pay according to the volume [...]
Further apologies
Again, I feel particularly bad that I’ve been neglectful of my postings. Mostly I want to apologize to my loyal reader (who I suspect is either my mother or my wife, or maybe even a guy I work with). I’ll try to get my act together and do some serious muckraking over the next coupla [...]
Che Guevara was a murdering thug
Reason TV published a video about the celebrity impact of Che Guevara juxtaposing it with interviews by a Cuban-in-exile musician and a Chinese basketball player who played during Mao’s tenure.
The clearest point made in the segment is that people seem to very comfortable wearing clothing of mass murderers as long as they’re the communist brand [...]
Marking with red is aggressive
Queensland state government has published educational changes that pointedly suggest marking with red pen is aggressive and may harm the fragile egos of children. In addition to marking with more subdued colours, such as blue or black (likely to be culled for racist overtones), the guide also includes mandated peer reviewing and tutoring - of [...]
Alberta Liberals marginalize themselves for another 5 years
The results are in. The Alberta Liberal Party (ALP) has again chosen to be sidelined in Alberta politics with the recent selection of Dr. David Swann as the new party leader. A real opportunity was lost by not selecting his primary opponent Dave Taylor whose passion is to bring the party more to the centre [...]
iPhone proving itself out as a real computing platform
I got an email from a friend of mine last week that showed a new app for the iPhone. I’ve been slightly resistant to portable computing platforms as I’ve played with Blackberries in the past and am a current owner of a Nokia N800 - both of which a reasonable cool, epsecially the resolution on [...]
Canadians less likely to dole out bribes
Transparency International just released their Bribe Payers Index this week. It tracks the perceived propensity of various nationalities to pay bribes in foreign countries. The rankings are determined by polling almost three thousand executives from around the world with questions like:
How often do firms headquartered in (country name) engage in bribery in this country?
Basic stats:
Canada [...]
UK: Welcome mats are health and safety risk
A recent Telegraph story tells of the local council in Gosport deciding that residents of council flats who have welcome mats outside their doors are quite possibly causing safety problems. Not only this, but some renters have been threatened with legal action if they don’t remove the mats. This was opposed by some senior local [...]
Disincenting everyone is a poor policy idea
I stumbled across this book by Daniel Raventos distributed by the University of Michigan Press. In it Mr. Raventos suggests that everyone should have, freely available, a subsistence income with no strings attached. He supports this idea with these perceived benefits:
Anyone could opt out of employment at any time. Those with few skills would no [...]
Alberta Liberal Party election watch
So the Alberta Liberal Party has 2 days left to vote to determine who the next leader will be to take on the perenially powerful Tories.
I’ve been lucky enough to be on the mailing lists of the three leadership hopefuls, and policy statements and positions have been showing up regularly. None of the information I’ve [...]
Beer ordering gestures studied
A couple of researchers out of the U of A, Elena Nicoladis and Paula Marentette, along with Simone Pika out of Manchester did a study of gestures that various cultures use for ordering beer. They hypothesize:
…it should be possible to guess an individuals’ cultural origin by observing her way of counting up to ten on [...]
Change diapers often! (just in case you didn’t know)
Best study conclusion I read this past week:
Among infants wearing disposable diapers, there is an increased risk of [Urinary Tract Infection] as the frequency of changing diapers decreases.
Boy am I glad I read the study, I was getting this diaper changing thing all wrong…
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Followup to Federal Fiasco - my feelings
Since I’ve been a bit slack on my posts this past week, I missed following up on my political disaster review of last week with an entertaining and engaging blow-by-blow. Since I wrote previously, things happened roughly in this order - focusing on how generally inept Dion has handled this thing from the beginning.
Both McKenna [...]
Pay the fine before you light up inside
In Holland where the laws are much nicer to pot than to cigarettes, some bars that illegally still allow smoking have resorted to asking for a cover charge to defray eventual fines. It’s not only an interesting way to make a statement about laws that affect property rights it’s a solid economic move as well, [...]
Public schools are a must unless you’re rich
TSC points out that left-of-centre Obama is sending his kids to a private school instead of a public one. While this may be surprising to some, most left-leaning politicians with enough cash send their kids to private schools while stridently opposing anything resembling a voucher system.
This is true of most aspects of enforced public funding, [...]
Clamp down on petty infractions, but not if it’s an MP
As the CSM suggests, all the zero-tolerance, petty bureaucrats in the UK are allowed to push the citizens around, as long as it doesn’t begin to affect the lifestyles of British MPs.
Counterterrorism unit,
Officers didn’t just search the home of [MP] Damian Green – they arrested him, raided his office, and detained him for nine hours [...]
Good teeth help women in the labour market
Sherry Glied and Matthew Neidell attempt to show in a recent paper that having good teeth is an asset in the labour market.
Their study tracked the earnings of a mix of people comparing those who grew up in communities with fluoridated drinking water and those without. They came to a variety of conclusions based on [...]
Tomatoes, Weed, what’s the difference?
A crack team of constables tore apart a Scottish house after mistaking tomato plants for marijuana - explicitly stating their obvious confusion as they burst through the door.
Lulu Matheson had been growing tomatoes on her windowsills and these seemingly set the alarm bells ringing for the local police. Obviously the Northern Constabulary’s training criteria doesn’t [...]
Off with the flu
I apologize to my loyal reader, as I have been off with the flu, Santa duties, food poisoning, and general apathy the past few days. Lame excuses all, but…
I’ll endeavour to get my readership above zero over the next few days.
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I aspire to write like Rex Murphy…
because of columns like this.
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Canadian political leaders - someone will lose face
I’ve avoided writing about the whole detent going in Ottawa, mostly because the whole thing has been making me utterly furious - almost apoplectic.
Recently, for the first time in 20 years I’ve become more politically active at all four levels of government that sit, some heavier than others, on top of us - federal, provincial, [...]
UK: No more cheap booze
The national government in the UK is determined to slap new regulations on drinking to attempt to curb a rise in anti-social behaviour. The suggestions range from a ban on happy hours and ladies nights, along with stringent labeling on cans and bottles.
From the Daily Mail:
Critics of liberalised licensing laws claim the move three years [...]
We don’t need no stinking property rights
From the Frontier Centre this week comes an article about the truly unstable state of Canadian personal wealth.
Stephanie Farrington found that 50% of Canadian’s wealth is tied up in property, will a large chunk of that sunk into primary residences. What makes this unstable, besides the current expectations of home price deflation, is that in [...]
Invisible Hand analysed
Three friends of mine, who I will for the sake anonymity name PJ, Mike1 and Mike2, were chatting over brews recently and got into a discussion about the meaning behind the term Invisible Hand. They knew that it was coined by Adam Smith and that Milton Friedman had commented on it as well.
PJ had suggested [...]
