COP 17 or cop out.

Last August there was news that an old theory had been resurrected to explain global warming. You will remember the story out of CERN, that cosmic rays may have an effect on warming, greater than the dreaded CO2, such was the evidence presented.
That posting, plus others, frequently prompt comments from other bloggers, and readers informing me of my heretical position in view of the scientific consensus. No one is more righteous, or more fervent in their belief, than a religious zealot. So I feel comfortable in comparing AGW belief and religion, and that does not even include the question of evidence in either case.
Of course not all who believe that global warming has occurred, and is occurring, are religious zealots. I agree that warming has and is occurring (I'm not a zealot, just a skeptic), I also agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (so are H2O and methane). I just don't believe its an issue we can or should try to control, nor do I think it will ever be a problem, at least not in the Al Gore doom and gloom scenario. As I have stated before, the scientists are gung-ho for AGW research and grants, because they need the money, plain and simple, and governments want the power and control.
In the last few months their have been some interesting developments on the AGW front. The Koch Brothers, rich American libertarians (of all people), funded a study called BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature), which discovered that the earth has been warming, shocking I know, and the continental glaciers around my house have retreated, too! The warmists are thrilled, because this BEST project, could mean the end of climate change skepticism or as they prefer, denial. I don't think so. In fact there are many questions that remain unanswered and the whole thing has been questioned.
Then there was the case of the delinquent teenager, or rather the new book that compares delinquent teenagers to "climate experts." This book by the Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise, adds gasoline to the firestorm created by "climategate." Imagine having the power to affect multi-billion dollar government programs based on "peer-reviewed" data compiled by activist graduate students. That is part of the claim in Ms. Laframboise' book as explained here.
At the end of November, the IPCC meets again to save the world, this time in Durban South Africa. Will it be another Cancun, I hope?  Will people realize that climate science resembles pseudoscience in its ability to predict doom, or as Matt Ridley eloquently stated: "we may be putting a tourniquet round our necks to stop a nosebleed." Who is Matt Ridley? He is a zoologist who recently delivered a lecture for the Angus Millar Lecture 2011, on Scientific Heresy. The lecture dissects the difference between science and pseudoscience (well worth the read). Ridley provides six lessons which he uses to attack the establishment view on AGW. He concludes: "I’ve spent a lot of time on climate, but it could have been dietary fat, or nature and nurture. My argument is that like religion, science as an institution is and always has been plagued by the temptations of confirmation bias. With alarming ease it morphs into pseudoscience even – perhaps especially – in the hands of elite experts and especially when predicting the future and when there’s lavish funding at stake." I couldn't agree more, as for COP17, we should cop out.

 

The Fatal Conceit

A new website has got me thinking again, about why I do this blog, and why I believe, two apparently very different topics, are so intertwined. The idea that links politics and religion together for me, is called "spontaneous order." One of my fellow bloggers is far more learned than I on the topic, you can find him at Interdisciplinary World down there to the right on my blog list. I've written about this before, and you will see why it comes up again.
Spontaneous order is essentially order that seems to arise out of chaos. Why? Because there are unseen "rules or laws" that create the order. The rules were not made up by anyone, they are just characteristics of the nature of matter and energy, the way the universe works. Humans have discovered a lot of these rules with a tool called science. There are many subdivisions of science now, and we know a lot of the rules.
One of the book covers seen above, is Darwin's Origin of Species. Its in this book that he outlines what he thinks are the rules that govern speciation in nature which he calls natural selection. Natural selection is part of the mechanism of Evolution. Of course Evolution conflicts with a great many religious beliefs which brings me back to the first paragraph, and part of the reason for this blog. Generally I tolerate religious belief because it can be compartmentalized sufficiently so as to not interfere with other people's actions. When it starts to interfere, becoming "pushy" and smothering, I push back. One of the positive results of the new world of "political correctness" that we now inhabit, is that people realize that their particular religion is not necessarily everyone's. So my own children did not sing "yes Jesus loves me" in "public" school, like I once did. Chalk one up for freedom from religion.
Darwin did not know about the genetic reasons for evolution, he did not know about shifting allele frequencies or anything at that level of complexity or below, so he really did not discover the "rules," he inferred the rules. We are still discovering all the rules in biology. The important thing for me, is that the rules are discoverable, not mystical, not under the control of a deity. No deity is required, evolution is spontaneous and orderly.
The other book cover, Hayek's book, is related. If you look up spontaneous order, you will see written that many classical liberals (that's politics folks), like Hayek, believe that markets are governed most efficiently without being governed. The rules that govern markets and human behaviour - the science of economics - work best spontaneously without the tinkering of an intelligent designer.
In evolution, the idea of an intelligent designer is common among religious folk, the undiscoverable, unseen, and unknowable deity, is the designer. In economics, because it is a science peculiar to humans (and no other creatures on Earth), many believe there needs to be a designer, a tinkerer, someone to make it more efficient, because people are smart. Right? Unfortunately this is where the conflict occurs. Economics cannot be compartmentalized, in fact it pervades every aspect of one's life in a civil society. Instead of being left to a deity, economics has become by default the purview of government. My children are not free to interact with others in a spontaneous economic order as they should, they, and all of us are manipulated. We all sing to the tune "the government is here for the common good." The disagreement is whose common good? That is what Hayek's Fatal Conceit is about, people who think they know better.
The video below comes from a new website: Libertarianism. It references spontaneous order, and its delivered by an excellent writer David Boaz. If you need a refresher or a new insight, watch.        

  

  

Untying the knot that strangles economic freedom

SURPRISE! The Federal Conservative Party's pipe-dream promise of cutting Canada's deficit (never mind the debt) by 2014, has just stumbled into objective reality. The financial chaos in the rest of the world is beating at our door.

That (photo) Saturday Night Live skit (Nov. 5, 2011), referencing the Greek financial turmoil, joked that "Dionysus (god of the grape harvest, ritual madness and ecstasy...) has the spending part down cold, but saving … not so much." Time to call in "Klaus, the German god of prudence and austerity."

The cradle of democracy is in trouble. Exposed for all to see, are the unintended consequences of the political entanglements that were created for the common good. It seems manipulating for the common good, is really not so good after all. (go ahead, try and sell that idea)

Prime Minister Harper, is fresh from the latest G20, where noises were made that G20 members should 'kick in some cash' (yes, that's us folks) to help out our Greek friends. 'Hey buddy, can you spare a dime' (or else). Now Finance Minister Flaherty, says that promises made just last June will be altered. Quelle surprise!

The Greek gods have inspired my friend Gene Balfour to cook up a policy proposal for Ontario that suggests practical steps to untie the knot created by big government. Gene suggests that it is excessive regulation that creates and expands the need for public sector jobs, which increases the payroll, which impacts government spending, which affects the deficit, and adds to the debt. Do you remember what happened to the old lady that swallowed a fly? It's a bit like that, but not funny. Here is Gene's proposal.   

Winning!

Sorry to mislead, this post has nothing to do with the actor and party animal Charlie Sheen. However, in March of 2011, Sheen redefined the term "winning" to give it a more ironic twist. The usual meaning: "the act of a person or thing that wins" (without tiger blood etc.), applies here. Sure, money would have been most welcomed as a winning, but, in this case it's a political win, unusual enough for me.
On the weekend, the Ontario Libertarians had a convention where they chose me as the party leader, and I'm grateful for that; but my family, well, some misgivings there.
A political party Convention such as we had, would ordinarily get wide press coverage (there was local coverage). But, we are not a large group, though we are growing. Its pretty clear to me why we are growing, and why more people want the party to have more influence and impact.
We are the only real alternative to the "big government" statist political parties. Their failures at governing (or over-governing), are becoming visible each and every day, to all but the most collectivist minded people.
Just a few months ago, I had no intention of seeking the leadership of this party, it had not even crossed my mind. But as we drew closer to the provincial election on Oct. 6, 2011, I realized that it was possible to reach our stated goal of 60-plus candidates across the province. In fact, 74 people had come forth and completed some level of paperwork toward candidacy by early September. Ultimately, only 51 people jumped through all the hoops, still twice the number we had fielded in the previous election; impressive enough. The missing ingredient may have been leadership, like the inspirational coach that urges the team on to victory, that may be all that was required for the final push to 74.
Canadian libertarian parties have a sad history of invisible leaders. In the last Federal election (May 2, 2011) the Federal Libertarian leader was AWOL, he didn't even run; he disappeared not long after his leadership election. So, just a paltry 23 candidates represented the party in that election. The Ontario leader for the past 15 years was more visible, but not all an activist, so appeared absent. Of course the cloak of invisibility is sewn by the media, but it's the leaders themselves that provide the thread and the fabric.
Don't get me wrong, leadership alone is not sufficient for attention and success. Look at our scions the Freedom Party. Their leader was quiet visible in the media (to me anyway), especially television. He is articulate and presents himself as a reasonable alternative, and they had 56 candidates in the last election, yet received only half of our total vote count. So leadership, while important, isn't sufficient. It was supremely important however, for the NDP Federally in May, with media help and hype. That just tells me the message needs to be agreeable to the media.....too bad.
My political awakening these last three years, has shown me that political parties in Canada are remarkably flimsy things, I don't think most people know that. When I ran as a candidate over the last three years, newspaper reporters would ask me where my campaign headquarters were, and who my manager was. Surprise, surprise, my home and me.
Parties can be in government with a huge majority then literally disappear after and election (Kim Campbell in 1993 lost 167 seats). The Federal Progressive Conservatives are now gone from the scene, though Brian Mulroney had a huge majority once. Politics is a risky business. Sometimes you may need that Adonis DNA to survive.
   

Greek salad days are over....

It has been over a year now since I first wrote about a sovereign debt and currency crisis. The best part of that post, is the YouTube video that is associated with it: Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis. The video goes over the cause of the US mortgage and housing crisis that culminated in the Great Recession, and the aftermath that Americans are still coping with.
Banks and bankers, Wall Street and the corporations were blamed for that financial crisis, and are still being blamed thanks to the recent Occupy Wall Street movements around the world. Of course its true, they deserve blame but it is only part of the truth. The video clearly points to the real culprits as being the US (and other) government's attempts to prevent a severe recession after 9/11 by increasing liquidity, or in English, making it easier to get a loan, buy a house etc.
It worked, it really did get easy to get a loan or mortgage, so easy that people that should not have qualified for loans/mortgages got them anyway. And of course those shaky loans were "packaged" together, and with the help of colluding ratings agencies, the loans were treated as Triple A guaranteed secure investments to obtain an income stream. The packaged loans came to be known as Asset-Backed-Commercial-Paper, and the rest is now history.
But of course the crisis did not get resolved, it just got magnified and compounded as the video suggests, with huge bailouts, socialized bailouts. These corporate bailouts mostly, were so large (like TARP), that the US incurred new huge debt. Many countries already had such high debt and future liability from entitlements, that their solvency was already in jeopardy. Europe seemed to be rife with those countries that have come to be known as PIIGS. Greece is the "G" in PIIGS and it looks like it has real problems.
So here we are. Greece has so much debt, it has trouble meeting its obligations to payoff loans. As a member of the Eurozone, a Greek default would create a Lehman-like collapse for Europe, damage the Euro, and likely bankrupt some large banks that hold the debt. The Eurozone leaders met last week, and the crisis was resolved! Yippee! Stock markets were euphoric until yesterday, when the Greek President announced that there will be a referendum to accept or reject the terms of the Eurozone bailout, I think. The wording of the referendum is still in doubt, because the Greek government may not last until the end of the week. A parliamentary non-confidence vote could scuttle the whole deal, hell, the referendum could scuttle the whole deal. What is the deal? Basically the Greek debt will be "forgiven" to a degree. That means the debt holders will not get all their money back, like in a bankruptcy and Eurozone partners will cover some of Greece' payments and of course increase their own debt (lets not worry about that now.....).
But what about the referendum, what are the options Greek voters have? Greece looks like it is now stuck between the proverbial rock, and hard place. Should their be a referendum? That timely question was kicked around by two good writers at the National Post. In favour of a referendum: Terence Corcoran, against is Peter Foster. 

     

Atlas Shrugged Part One arrives, finally.

Atlas Shrugged the movie (Part 1) has finally made it to Canada more than 6 months after being released in the USA. I have no idea why it took so long to get here, to what the Toronto locals, like me, refer to as "Hollywood North."
So far, its at only one theatre in downtown Toronto, just half an hours drive from my house. I'm not sure I'll even go. The rest of Canada is out of luck, and FYI for my foreign readers, Canada is huge - really spread out.
I'm fairly discerning about movies that I'll actually attend, and this movie has received mixed reviews at best. The last movie that I saw was Moneyball, and it is well worth the price of admission, and as good as the critics have said. I've learned to wait for the reviews and the Rotten Tomatoes consensus, before I consider plunking down my cash for a movie. Otherwise I wait until a movie comes to DVD or to my TV movie subscription channels.
Atlas Shrugged has played a pivotal role in my life and my view of the world, and no movie could live up to that, least of all the one that has been produced from what I read.
Today a review of sorts appeared in the National Post, written by Peter Foster. Mr. Foster is one of my favourite writers on the Post, click that link in the previous sentence and you will see a list of his recent columns. Read some, and you will understand why I like Peter Foster. His front page review today, can be found here. I think the Post understands that many of its readers have a soft spot for Ayn Rand, so does Peter Foster. His review is positive, and he views the story of Atlas Shrugged from the movie, as an allegory to the events in the news today, lots of us do. It's an interesting view, and as he says, its the reason Rand's work remains "eternally relevant" and her books "still well worth reading."  

Bail out students and everyone with OPM!

Its time to re-examine the real goal of the Occupy Movement, especially from where it began, in New York, USA. The OWS movement has made their point, corporations that are in cahoots with government have received special dispensations (bailouts) using taxpayers money. Everyone knows that, and everyone should realize that the government bears full responsibility for that action. Will they be blamed, will they be punished for recklessly encouraging moral hazard? No, sadly, the OWS movement blames the rich mostly, the 1%. Worse yet, they don't seem to want to stop the occupation. Violence has broken out in some cities. Will it get worse, or will OWS fold up their tents and go home for the winter?
I'm betting it gets worse, and they will be stringing up Xmas lights soon, and I think its become more clear now what their real purpose is, and that is to achieve the very thing that they are protesting.

In the United States, they are creeping into election season (just one year away). On one side will be the Republicans and their Tea Party with their agenda led by one of the dwarf candidates, Perry, Romney, or one of them (likely not Ron Paul). On the other side will be the OWS (that might yet align themselves with the Obama Democrats) with their agenda, that has been until now fuzzy.
The fuzziness is clearing. Obama has announced a bailout plan for many of the student protestors in OWS. Not surprisingly, Rep. Ron Paul doesn't like it, but Obama is POTUS, and wants the job for another term. This could buy some needed votes!
Below, Nick Gillespie appears before the Judge, and doesn't mince words. BTW, OPM...? = Other People's Money.

Stopping the Gravy Train

It has been a year since Rob Ford was elected Mayor of Toronto. I point this out because he won a large plurality promising to get rid of municipal government waste, and over spending, without cutting services.
My view is that Toronto, is like any Western democratic government in microcosm. The city  government has grown by leaps and bounds, taking on more and more responsibilities: sewage, water, electric power, schools, transit, affordable housing, waste removal, roads, entertainment, parks, recreation, and on and on. Ford's mantra in the election was to: "stop the gravy train." So, one year in, hows he doing?
Well, yesterday he managed to punish one of the larger municipal unions for having a garbage strike two years ago. One half of the city will now have "privatized municipal garbage collection." Projections are, that money will be saved and the possibility of a city wide strike will be diminished. Chalk one up for Ford.
In many ways Ford has the typical conservative view of government: we need it, we need lots of it, but we can cut the waste and make it efficient too.
He was serious, he hired a large independent auditor to find ways to cut government spending without affecting core services. Well, I've written about that issue, here and here. To me that sounded like having your cake and eating it too, but Ford will beat you to the cake. ;-)
After several months in office looking for the "gravy," Rob Ford discovered that he was standing in it. There was little waste in the actual machinery of government, the waste turned out to be the very services he had sworn not to cut. The libraries, the pools, the theatres, the zoo, and all the "freebies" the citizens of Toronto came to expect, paid for by other people's money. Let's not even talk about the bloated salaries city workers make so that they may have a descent living wage. The city has a fair wage policy where it will over pay workers because it's really not their money is it? Someone else is paying, so we can be magnanimous.
When citizens got wind of Ford's plan to downsize government by cutting their precious "free" services, there was lots of  blowback. His popularity plunged. Even the "Occupy Toronto" protestors, very new on the scene, and with little to actually protest about, decided Rob Ford's plans presented a large juicy target. Indeed it does.
So, will Ford prevail? Does Ford actually have a better idea? Short answer, no. I'm betting he tweaks the system a bit, makes some cuts and declares victory. The unions are starting to target their guns on him, not yet with attack ads, that will come later. Right now they are using media to deliver the message that unions are made of regular people, your neighbours, your friends, and they care! They care about Toronto, soon they will say Ford doesn't.
   

Penn Jillette: Libertarianism

A snapshot from my Ontario healthcare family album

For the past month I've been watching and negotiating my way through the Ontario healthcare system on behalf of my elderly mother. Fortunately the initial problem was not that critical, but when one is injured in a fall, at 92 years of age, even little problems get magnified.

For all of its faults, and there are so many, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan or OHIP system seems to function, but at such a poor level of service and timeliness, that no one would tolerate it if it were in any other service area. In healthcare, most Ontarians choose to ignore or excuse the long worrying waits, or the pain endured before treatment is available because somehow, they view the system as part of their definition of what it means to be Canadian.

When the paramedics brought my mother to the local emergency department, she was "triaged" rather than "served" even though the emergency room was not busy by any stretch, I was there. Most of the "treatment" she underwent was done by the paramedics en route. When she arrived at the hospital she was viewed as an elderly patient who may or may not survive, and she was treated as a costly liability rather than an opportunity to make profit. What other service industry do Canadians interact with, that treats you like that? Imagine a dentist being so cavalier with someone's pain, how long would they be in business? Of course in dentistry, people have choices. This was a major regional hospital, yet my mother was not even given pain medication for over 3 hours when the doctor on-call finally saw her.

You would think that the supposedly compassionate physicians of Ontario (or anywhere in Canada for that matter) would collectively rise up and challenge the government health care model, but you would be wrong. 

In the editorial introduction to a recent FP Magazine, the editor Terence Corcoran, writes that the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) has "essentially abandoned their customers," and "Canadian doctors, the state-nationalized victims of health-care delivery, are also its official defenders." This is cronyism of the worst kind, and all Canadian doctors should be ashamed.

I think Mr. Corcoran's editorial was not widely read or discussed, because I've barely heard a peep out of the rest of the media, but it is worthy of your time to read it.