Annoyance
Blogging for the inverterately lazy
Hello, to my now single reader. (I still think it’s my mom…)
Anyway, I’ve obviously not got my act together to blog like Megan McArdle, and as I’m thinking more and more, argue like Don Boudreaux (of whom I am enough of a fanboy to recently buy donboudreauxismyhero.com after seeing some sympatico from Steven Landsburg and [...]
Alberta government continues with vague economic pronouncements
From the Canadian Press comes the announcement that the Alberta Government feels that it has the oilsands problem figured, since they announced that they have a 20 year plan. Directly from the Canadian Press:
The report says the energy industry should be required “to use best available technology” that is “economically achievable.” The fine print doesn’t [...]
Half or double - Alberta government employee salaries
Straight out of See, comes an article describing expectations for the new sitting of the Alberta Legislature. Tucked in near the bottom of the article is a paragraph describing a move by Harry Chase:
Social Workers: Harry Chase, the Liberal MLA for Calgary-Varsity, is calling for a review of the wages for social workers or other [...]
Alberta Gov’t incentive “plan” sounds economically illiterate
As many of you know, there has been lots of recent discussion about Alberta’s competitive advantage compared to other regimes in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basic (WCSB), and other jurisdictions. Recently, a few reports have suggested that Alberta is the highest cost region in the highest cost basin in the world right now. There are [...]
Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy
If you have any interest in the writings of Adam Smith and see his name and works seemingly quoted in the press, you really should take a peak at Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy. Gavin Kennedy, a prof out of the UK, does an excellent job deconstructing and critically evaluating the general misuse, misunderstanding and misquoting [...]
Alberta royalties miss the point…
While there are a variety of other issues at play it seems that the Fair Share plan, since changed to the New Royalty Framework and most recently rebadged as the Alberta Royalty Framework, isn’t doing much to improve the prospects of the oil industry.
It’s like no-one pictured oil at less than $50/bbl when the Stelmach [...]
Global warming duds…
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy represented an article from the Melbourne Herald Sun entitled Top 10 Dud Global Warming Predictions.
While I would rank myself as a skeptic of global warming, especially of the histrionic man-bear-pig Al Gore variety, articles like this entertain me for reasons other than the debunking.
Global Warming, or Climate Change as [...]
Surprise! More competition serves consumers…
From a paper entitled How does access regulation affect broadband penetration?, the authors do a study trying to determine the type of regulation that provides for the highest acceptance of broadband internet access.
They compare three regulatory regime styles that in turn allow for:
single technology where resellers sell the same thing
single technology where resellers also can [...]
Madoff’s con won’t be fixed by regulations…
…only by improved personal responsibility.
To put things very simply, it wasn’t a lack of regulations that let Madoff run his scheme for as long as he did.
What allowed him to evade prosecution by current laws was merely a lack of due dilligence on the part of the investors in his “fund”. While most investments take [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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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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, [...]
Toronto Mayor clueless on basic economics
David Miller - the seemingly basket-case mayor of Toronto - has decided to change the way they’re trying to discourage plastic bag use by Toronto citizens.
It seems that the original idea was to force supermarkets to pay their customers a dime for bringing in a reusable bag. The change was to instead have the stores [...]
Alberta Liberal Party votes - make it matter
The Alberta Liberal Party (ALP) membership* is voting for a new leader coming up very soon. There are three men standing for the job: David Swann, Dave Taylor, and Mo Elsalhy.
The party has been an also-ran player in the province of Alberta for the past 8 decades, many times fading to single-digit seats in the [...]
Turn the world economy around - legalize drugs
I was reading the Post blog today and came across a clip covering a smoke-in in Toronto. It reminded me of a conversation I had with some friends a couple of weeks ago.
Take general estimates of the Canadian drug trade - let’s assume about $18 billion/year. Now say that legalization and lower business risk would [...]
Queen’s Deane doesn’t grasp free speech
Patrick Deane of Queen’s University had the gall to trot out this statement when defending his crack squad of thought police:
Freedom of speech and thought is impossible without respect, consideration and a commitment to mutual understanding.
Is he willfully ignorant or merely inept in his understanding of the words he uses?
Freedom of speech needs nothing but [...]
Spam down 40 to 70%
Depending on who you talk to spam is down 40 to 70% since a major spam gang has been shut down in San Jose, CA.
For those of us who typically get hundreds of spam per day, it’s been nice lately to actually be able to check the junk box and not have to wade through [...]
British clown music a danger to the public, especially children
I know that I seem to be picking on British public policy quite often, but it’s just so easy. From a link off the Reason Brickbats page comes this astounding obtuse abuse of civic power.
Zippos Circus clowns were banned from playing musical instruments because the Birmingham City Council told them the music contravened the Licensing [...]
UK to fine running motorists…
…who are stuck in traffic jams. The incredible British nanny-state has decided to levy fines of £20 on drivers who happen to have their cars running while stuck in traffic. This is likely to:
make a wholesale change in the behaviour of people who are already under stress or,
piss loads of people off and likely cause [...]
TRoC explicitly supports Quebec separatism
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy* released an email with a variety of articles showing that the Bloc Quebecois would be utterly sidelined without public campaign cash. Here’s some tidbits from the various articles:
“Without federal financing, the separatist party would likely have been unable to mount a serious campaign in the 2008 election.” concludes [...]
And again DST debunked
Daylight savings time (DST) shifts, and especially the debate on it drives me nuts. It’s been shown many times that the logic used by its proponents is spurious at best. And another study (PDF) by Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant proves quite nicely that DST is crap, or at least ineffective:
Our main finding [...]
The US election
It’s getting close to the end of the campaign, something I’ve been looking forward to for the past many many many months. Mostly it’ll be good to see the end of all the caterwauling, whining, whinging and substance-free attacks the candidate teams and their media posses are making on each other.
Unlike the fatuous Brad DeLong, [...]
