China is ticking.....

The other night I saw a documentary about the final secrets surrounding the WWII Allied escape from the prisoner of war camp called Stalag Luft III. This was supposed to be a final accounting of facts, some of which were used to produce the wonderful movie called The Great Escape back in 1963.
This is a remarkable story of how prisoners assisted the war effort against the NAZI's through subterfuge, guile, courage and determination. The "new" information revealed in the documentary, hinges around how porous this POW camp was, and how the military in Britain (using the BBC) and the United States (using MIS-X) assisted in the Great Escape.
Here is some of what went into the escape  of 76 prisoners right under the noses of their German captors.
Constructing the three tunnels (Tom, Dick and Harry) required massive quantities of wood and other materials: Over 4,000 bed boards, 34 chairs, 52 20-man tables, 90 double tier bunks, 10 single tables, and 76 benches were used to help construct the tunnels. Getting through the tunnels was only part of the escape. The escapees required 50 sets of blue coveralls, 42 German uniforms, 260 civilian jackets, 100 civilian suits, and 300 civilian caps were made for the escapees to wear once they made it outside the camp. The 77th escapee was captured that night outside the camp, and eventually all but three of the 76 escapees were recaptured, and 50 were murdered as retribution by the Germans. But this escape was a success because NAZI records indicate that 1.5 million Germans were involved looking for the 76 escapees and not advancing their cause.


This got me thinking as I read an article about China this week in the National Post. All totalitarian regimes go to great lengths to subjugate and control their population through spies, monitors, etc. This is done at great expense to the regime (as it was to the NAZI's above) and is one reason that these regimes eventually collapse. The Soviet Union took 70 long years to collapse, but that was a different time. When will the Chinese Red Empire collapse?
The Post article, The illusion of China's rise, talks about the capitalist (but not market-driven) miracle of China's growth while at the same time describing China as having:

"....no independent trade unions, farmers' unions, chambers of commerce or industry associations -- only countless silent workers who have no sense of rights and no channels of complaint. In China, we have no independent media or independent academic research -- only television, radio, newspapers, publishing houses, research institutes and universities which are either mouthpieces of the government or subject to the party's control. In China, we have no independent and registered human rights and environmental NGOs, and no independent foundations. Those public interest researchers and lawyers who try to be watchdogs and uphold the Chinese Constitution are watched themselves and suppressed when they try to contribute to the peaceful transition of China to a country of laws. 

And we have no meaningful protections for the environment. According to the Constitution, China's land, rivers, forests and mineral resources are all state-owned. In practice, this means owned by state officials. Any official who puts his hands on our resources can own them. Land grabs have become the primary means for officials at all levels to get rich."

So how long can such a situation persist? How long will the people "shut their mouths" and accede to the state? In the age of the internet and other communication technologies the Chinese "prison" is very much more porous than Stalag Luft III. I think a change could be sooner than later.
The Chinese leadership takes a risk in allowing travel of some citizens, and allowing them to be exposed to the freer world outside. The thirst for freedom is certainly alive in China, and an uprising of sorts has happened before in the spring of 1989 as evidenced by the iconic photo of "tank-man" above. Back then communism seemed to be in retreat everywhere in the world. Sure the Chinese have it better now than ever before, but freedom is contagious and the deprivation of some freedoms motivates those deprived to have more. A grass roots Chinese freedom uprising would have far reaching economic consequences on the entire planet to say the least.

Kristallnacht 72 years ago.......

What can happen when citizens become apathetic to the actions of their democratically elected governments?


What can happen when governments take actions for the "good of the country" even though those actions are immoral and unjust?

What can happen when government dictates who may or may not possess firearms?

The National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI) received a plurality of votes cast in the Weimar Republic election of March 5, 1933. Ostensibly this was a democratic election and the NAZI Party formed a coalition with two other parties to pass the Enabling Act of 1933, "A Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation." This law effectively gave the Cabinet (Hitler and his gang) the authority to enact laws without consulting the German Parliament (Reichstag). It was such a law that provoked the Kristallnacht of November 9th and 10th, 1938.   

One of the significant purposes of Kristallnacht was the explicit disarmament of the German Jews. The SA were under orders to confiscate all Jewish-owned firearms. The order was issued "[a]ll Jews are to be disarmed. In the event of resistance they are to be shot immediately."

Kristallnacht is often considered to be to beginning of  The Holocaust.

Does history repeat?

The Golden Circle: Why, How, What?

Marketing a message or product is the key to success. How do the most successful do their marketing? How can you best promote your product? How can you get people to vote for you? Simon Sinek thinks he knows, and I think he is worth a listen. 

Political Comedian endorses Libertarianism

P.J. O'Rourke spells it out:

Remember, remember......

It's the month of remembering.
Americans need to remember to vote every other November, they did this week but things really didn't change much according to many.
In this part of Canada we have the 30th Anniversary of Holocaust Education Week, where we remember to educate children and adults about the horrors of the Holocaust and genocide. But things haven't changed that much, we have had genocides since.
November 11th is Veterans Day in the States, they have a lot of veterans with new ones produced almost daily. The day honours Veterans who do the job asked of them even if the job is not worthy of the doing. It would be good if somehow this Veterans Day people reflect on the purpose and cost of war.
In Canada we have Remembrance Day on the 11th, where we remember soldiers lost and wars fought, and we have our own new set of veterans produced because of a purposeless, pointless war. None of this remembering seems to have diminished the possibility of war.
November the fifth is Guy Fawkes Day in Britain, commemorating a treasonous plot in 1605 to overthrow Protestant King James. The famous gunpowder plot failed, but the idea that governments can be fought and overthrown lingers. This idea was popularized in the 2006 movie V for Vendetta about a mythical totalitarian Britain, and a new gunpowder plot to overthrow the oppressive government, and restore freedom. The speech by V that galvanizes the British population and can be seen is here. In some ways the speech and the way it was presented reminds me of the much longer speech by John Galt in Rand's classic Atlas Shrugged.
Happy Fifth!      

von Mises Institute of Canada

I'm very pleased to report that a FaceBook group has formed "dedicated to spreading the teachings of the Austrian School of Economics, with special reference to Canada."


The Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada website is supposed to launch in December 2010.
I'm still not sure who is taking the initiative here, but it may be that down at Mises.org HQ, they are becoming aware that Canadians can contribute to the cause of liberty too, about time.
Here are two recent examples and there may be more I am not aware of: Predrag Rajsic and Rod Rojas. Both of these fine writers have other contributions on file at Mises and its worth it to read their previous contributions.

Have you been 'Greenwashed'?

Green-wash (green’wash’, -wôsh’) – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.
Let me reassure you, this posting is 100% fat-free, sodium-free, sugar-free, cyclamate-free, aspartame-free, phthalate-free, BPA-free, and its organic, carbon-footprint-free and, well, just plain free! I think I may be channelling George Carlin, I wish I had his talent.
This week an environmental marketing firm called TerraChoice released its research on the claims made by almost 5300 products as to their "greenness" and found almost 96% were lying. What a shock, companies exaggerate the effectiveness of their products! Of course this a tradition as old as, well, really old, I was going to say snake-oil salesmen, but I'm pretty sure the tradition goes back to the very first days of the idea of marketing. There are a couple of stories here, first there is TerraChoice.
TerraChoice is like the Underwriters Labs of the 'green universe'. In fact it has been acquired by Underwriters Labs - ULC (Canada) in a very recent deal. A TerraChoice endorsement should give consumers some confidence that the product so endorsed is legit. Nothing wrong with that, I like the idea of UL/ULC or CSA labels on any of the things I buy, and a TerraChoice label sounds like a good idea. Of course I'm still skeptical, not necessarily of TerraChoice but of the need to buy 'green' products, but that is another story. People should be free to choose whether they want to be 'green' or not and I'm OK with that.  Here is a private company that can survive by confirming claims made by manufacturers as to the efficacy of their products based on empirical evidence and thus benefit consumer choice.
So what about empirical evidence? In the last few weeks the Canadian government has declared bisphenol A, also known as BPA to be a toxic substance. This is after it declared BPA banned from baby bottles, now it is toxic at any level and needs to be removed from food and beverage can-liners and even cash register tape. 
Canada is leading the charge in this endeavour, the problem is no one is following. Even the Europeans think that BPA is perfectly safe because, well, there is no empirical evidence that supports banning it at these levels.
Claims have been made that BPA is linked to breast and prostate cancer, obesity, diabetes, attention deficit hyperactivity, autism, liver disease, ovarian disease, disease of the uterus, low sperm count and heart disease. As John Stossel says in a recent posting "when a chemical is said to cause so many disorders, that's a sure sign of unscientific hysteria."

You are being milked!

Most Canadians don't know that the price of milk in Canada is more than it should be. Should be? Thats right, the price of an item should be determined by its scarcity and the demand for it. The scarcer an item, the more it should cost in relative terms.
That U.S. gallon (3.7854 litres) jug of milk over there costs $2.79 at ShopRite stores in urban New Jersey, a 4-litre bag in Southern Ontario costs $3.99. Given that the currencies of the two countries are roughly at par, why the discrepancy in price? The answer is complex, so complex that the milk producers and the Canadian government are happy to keep the electorate "blissfully ignorant" as reported this week in the Financial Post.
The Post article blames the Canadian Dairy Commission or CDC, a Crown corporation that arbitrarily sets the price of milk and other dairy products based on something called supply management and without regard for market conditions. Of course an arbitrarily high price affects the poor and needy the most. Does the government care?    

Not just tilting at windmills

One of the "promising solutions" to global warming is reaping energy (carbon-free) from the wind. This of course is only part of the solution proposed by the AGW alarmists.
An article by Larry Solomon in the Financial Post: Wind: The new nuclear, compares the building of more windmills to the construction of nuclear power reactors in the 1970's and 80's. Back then groups of environmentalists banded together to prevent construction of these power plants all over the Western world. Hollywood helped stoke the public fear with movies like the China Syndrome. Nuclear power was a no-no until James Lovelock (one of the earliest AGW alarmists) pointed out that nuclear was relatively carbon-free despite all its other faults. Strangely, a lot of those same protestors back then have changed their minds on nuclear.
Today a new group of protestors has come forth to push against the proliferation of wind mills. Solomon's article is an interesting look at all the issues involved.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Creation Day! According to Bishop James Ussher Oct. 23, 4004 BC, was the first day. Who can argue with that?

THE END IS NEAR, again

The other night I was watching the disaster movie 2012.  I've seen the big earth collision movies, like Armageddon and Deep Impact and the global warming epic The Day After Tomorrow. None of these are great movies, but all of them gave CGI technicians a multitude of challenges but I loved watching. People are fascinated with disasters, disaster movies, train wrecks, car wrecks, explosions and on and on, I am anyway.

That got me thinking about the global warming debate and several similar debates that have gone on when I was younger. Some of you will recall the population explosion and ecology scares of the 1960's and 1970's. The TIME cover (Jan. 1960) on this page was emblematic of the population scare and the Malthusian idea that humans were heading for famine, disease, and pestilence. The limits to growth idea, sold magazines and books then slowly morphed into an ecological disaster scenario which morphed into a variety of minor green issues that finally gave birth to the current disaster anthropogenic global warming or now more euphemistically called climate change.
We humans, NEED these kinds of threats, it brings humanity together. That became more evident after that photo taken from the Apollo 8 spacecraft in December 1968. There was tiny Earth in the blackness of space, our fragile home that must be saved from the ravages of us. People like to believe that they can save the planet, that's why we watch those disaster flicks, we enjoy the vicarious thrill of coming close yet averting catastrophe by collective action. We yearn to make that difference by being environmentally friendly in our daily lives.
With the help of a variety of alarmists in media (CBC is very guilty in Canada), among reputable scientists, and political leaders, we have a wonderful new disaster unfolding before us. This time it's a global problem, so it must be coordinated under the jurisdiction of the United Nations IPCC and it that requires the scientific and political elite of the planet save us from ourselves. The theme is the same, only the threat is different, bigger and more immediate and even worse, people and governments actually believe it.
Not everyone believes it, Vaclav Klaus the President of the Czech Republic doesn't believe it. In a speech given this week and excerpted here Klaus defiantly disagrees with many other world leaders about the veracity of anthropogenic global warming. He did that just weeks before COP16, the next conference (in Mexico) of the scientific and political elite who stand to reap enormous benefits for themselves by subjugating humanity to a global carbon tax regime like cap and trade.
Since most scientists view global warming as a boon to government/academic research grants for their work, they are loathe to bite the hand(s) that feeds them. These days it doesn't take much to get such funding, all that has to be done is to tack the phrase "....and its impact on (OR how it is affected by) climate change" to the proposal. Do that on all proposals to whomever, and get the funding! Current scientists won't fight this, the retired ones will, and so will the amateurs.
The argument against anthropogenic global warming is a bit like trying to disprove the existence of god, its tough, almost impossible to prove a negative. Even worse there is no money in it but that doesn't stop people from trying.
Here is a video from an educated amateur (Warren Meyer) that represents for me, one of the most comprehensive attacks on the idea of anthropogenic global warming I have ever seen. It's fairly lengthy, I saw it over a couple of days, and its done on a budget, but it is definitely worth your time if you are sitting on the fence about this issue.

Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptics Position (studio version) from Warren Meyer on Vimeo.
       

     

Reasons why big government hurts economic growth

This week Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney backtracked on his outlook for the Canadian economy. Things aren't as rosy as he once thought from his lofty perch in Ottawa. Down here in the real world lots of people have large debt, governments around the world claim to be cutting their size and spending because of debt, debt seems to be in abundance. So it makes sense that people and governments will rein in their spending and slow economic growth. That sounds right on paper but is that really the cause of poor economic growth?

Here is a view from Dan Mitchell at CATO that was produced over a year ago. It focusses on the American situation, but each of the reasons listed applies just as much (maybe more) to Canada.

Bubble Head - Serving and Protecting

The repercussions of this last summer's G20 protest in Toronto keep surfacing in the daily news. The latest story involves the touchy cop "attacked" by a bubble-blowing dissident provocatively blowing bubbles at him. The cop threatens to arrest (see below) the offending bubble-blower and charge her with assault if she persists. Later she is seen being arrested for some other "offence" and charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, the catch-all charge. 
Apparently video of this "incident" which was posted on YouTube has been viewed 300,000 times, and has spawned a cartoon: "Officer Bubbles" that depicts a beefy-black cop wearing sunglasses arresting someone for dancing then joking that the next video will show him shooting a kitten stuck in a tree. The cop involved - Constable Adam Josephs is now suing YouTube because he wants the identity of those responsible for posting the cartoon, defaming him, and bringing threats to his family.
This comedy continues and really does not make anyone look good particularly the Toronto Police. Obviously, now everyone will stop picking on this cop.
        

Be it resolved that religion is a force for good in the world...

The next Munk Debate (Nov. 26, 2010) pits former British P.M. Tony Blair against writer Christopher Hitchens arguing if religion is a force for good. Is there really any point? It might be an interesting evening, but here we will see Blair defending the indefensible and Hitchens arguing for the intolerable.

Who knew that politics gave Blair the credentials to argue in favour of religion? Oh, wait a minute "power" is central to both, and there is corruption, control, obfuscation, and extortion in both; maybe he is qualified. Certainly Blair's recent book tour where he defends Britain's entry into the war in Iraq qualifies him to defend the indefensible.
Hitchens' is a widely respected atheist who certainly qualifies as a worthy opponent, but his position as posted on the Munk website is: "If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world." That is as intolerable to me as religion itself. Imagine "instruction...not allowed", quite a different world indeed. Hitchens' shows us in that statement his true conservative roots - and when I use the word "conservative" I mean it in its most derogatory sense. What an ugly comment, what an ugly thought!

I don't have a problem with anyone practicing and perfecting their religion, just leave me out of it and keep me away from bigots like Hitchens'.

Balancing a budget sometimes means spending less on frills!

According to Dan Mitchell at CATO, spending less on government departments that are not really (according to the US Constitution) functions of government, will quickly balance the US budget. I know that sounds unbelievable; have a look for yourself: