Ranting and Roaring

Very scary, indeed. Happy Halloween, kids.

So as Alan notes, the defeated Tory government (blatantly) lied claiming the latest budget was balanced when in fact there was a 5.6 billion shortfall. The Globe and Mail was also on top of the story, though the National Post — to its shame — pushed the story to page A4. Who are they sucking up to anyway?

This goes a long way in supporting my theory that a McGuinty government would be no worse than an Eves government. In fact, given the disgraceful deception that the Tories pulled on the electorate, we’re probably better off having the Liberals at the helm.

On the plus side, McGuinty is breaking an election promise to implement one of the planks from the Janes’ Platform: charging for electricity what it actually costs! Good move, though they should also move to pseudo-market pricing to further reduce electricity costs (by reducing the costs of electricity futures and other derivatives) and to encourage conservation of energy and the reduction of pollution by smoothing the energy consumption curve over the day.

On the minus side, he’s also increasing the cost of cigs, unfairly punishing the lowest income earners in Ontario and contributing to the organized crime problem in this province. Doesn’t anyone remember the early 90′s?

Just figured out why I’m feeling so run down — I’ve got a cold. Grumble grumble.

From Kathy — read the whole thing there:

Another cause, which reflects UNICEF’s coming of age as a full-fledged UN agency, is anti-Americanism.

Via Kathy, a great one topples:

Enter Stage Right is offline for the immediate — and possibly long-term — future. Unfortunately unemployment and dwindling financial resources have combined to end the mighty reign of Enter Stage Right. Reality, I suppose, finally caught up. Thanks for all your support over the years.

Now that I’ve just added Neophyte Pundit to my blogroll, I feel comfortable in taking a little dig at this:

Homer: That Timmy is a real hero!
Lisa: How do you mean, Dad?
Homer: Well, he fell down a well, and… he can’t get out.
Lisa: How does that make him a hero?
Homer: Well, that’s more than you did

Update: his damn permalinks don’t work — mail me, dude, if you need help. The joke above was about Pvt. Lynch.

Check this out: 1500 frames of Toronto shot in 33 hours, in one handy QuickTime movie. Via Confessions of a Geek, which I totally randomly decided to check out.

“On Halloween, children across North America will collect millions of dollars for UNICEF. That money, in turn, will do diverse deeds around the developing world, everything from feeding malnourished infants to teaching that free enterprise kills children to inspiring teens in the Middle East to become suicide bombers.”

“Barbra Streisand doesn’t go to DuPont parties“.

TMLutas writes:

The media isn’t filled with idiots. They’ve got to know that these movements do this stuff on purpose in an attempt to recreate past US humiliations. So why does it seem that all the mainstream outlets think more seriously how they can maintain editorial independence from their advertisers than independence from terrorist manipulation?

My new working theory, based partially on conversations with media types, is that reporters are just basically lazy. As opposed to, say, being idiotic or malevolent. It’s amazing how much inexplicable stuff you see/read on the news can be reasonably explained by this (like for example, the almost half-page coverage in last weekend’s Telegram of a pro-facist^* rally by 60 people in St. John’s [more]).

^* Phrase precisely chosen.

It’s been 4 weeks for Sari. It’s been two-frickin’ years for me. Hell, they’re even talking about it on Day by Day.

I’m joining this today.

Hope your Dad gets better soon, Joey.

- April has discovered that she’s a screaming orgasm, which sounds like jolly good fun, if you ask me; she

- April has discovered that she’s a screaming orgasm, which sounds like jolly good fun, if you ask me; she

I’m not quite sure what to make of this meandering article/possibly-accurate slur on the Instapundit corner of the blogosphere by Steven I. Weiss in Jewsweek. The last paragraph is kind of interesting:

So, in this whole Easterbrook affair, Jews have been thrice hurt. The meaning of the charge of anti-Semitism has been diluted by falsely charging Easterbrook; the impact of the charge of anti-Semitism has been diminished by creating a false category that doesn’t require as much condemnation; the influence of religion on media has been reduced by whatever exclusion Easterbrook has faced and will face as a result of the false charge. Had Easterbrook gone unchallenged, it’d be hard to say that any damage would have resulted. There is enough “real anti-Semitism” out there to keep Jews busy without shooting themselves in the foot.

#4. You’ve created Exhibit A for the casual and serious anti-Semite, both of which there are far too many about, in the “Jews control the media” category.

I’ve been debating the whole week whether to say more on the Easterbrook-thing and I’ve decided I’ll keep my peace, for various reasons. However, one saying has served me well during my adult life and you’d all do well to learn it: a fool takes offense where none was meant.

Via Kathy.

I’d like to see him try to sneak past the Secret Service types and try to poke at Bush with a stick. You know, just for laughs. “Crickey mate, he’s a wild one!”.

Stop pissing away my money playing with trains! HO-scale is great or N-scale if you have a small house. You want to get people travelling between Montreal and Toronto more? Stop taxing airplanes and levying airports so much and we could occasionally afford it.

Federal Transport Minister David Collenette is expected to announce $700 million in funding Friday to upgrade infrastructure for Via Rail.

There were conflicting reports as to whether any of the funds will be used for the development of a high-speed train between Windsor, Ont. and Quebec City.

The funding will be spent over five years on improvements to railway tracks and equipment including locomotives, cars and stations.

The upgraded network will help speed up service, whether or not a high-speed train is part of the plan.

Sorry, Steve.

Chris Lawrence and Wi-Fi Networking News (né 802.11b Weblogger) are now on the blogroll. I also fixed a template bug in the Category archives that were showing the entry text twice.

Peaktalk beat me to blogging about Alberta’s case for privatizing liquor stores. I have a few minor issues with the National Post’s article:

First, governments can keep the money they now generate from liquor sales even after privatization, despite what the critics falsely claim. A guaranteed revenue flow to government is not necessarily a virtue, but for those who worry about such things, governments can mark up beer, wine and spirits whether or not they own the stores. In Alberta, the government reaped $402-million from its liquor mark-up in the full year before privatization, and then dropped taxes but still took in $371-million in the first full year after privatization. This year, and despite four tax reductions in the 1990s, the Alberta government will take in $545-million.

Fair enough, but how did taxation revenue change in comparison to other jurisdictions during the same period? The LCBO’s income went from 845 million in 1999 to (an expected) 1.1 billion this year. A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say. The government also makes profit from running the booze outlets, but the actual amount is unclear from the budget.

I didn’t have privatizing the LCBO on the Janes Platform but since the case is there, consider it officially back on!

I finally found out why Amritas has it all wrong about the prejudice against right-wingers in acemdia. According to one Trudy Ann Cameron of the University of Oregon in this month’s Atlantic [highly recommended for its article on the Columbia], people from the right aren’t heroic enough:

Brooks suggests that “any registered Republican who contemplates a career in academia these days is both a hero and a fool.” Colleges and universities do not necessarily exclude conservatives in hiring. Equally likely is that the personal traits of heroism and foolishness that lead people to choose academic careers are more prevalent among liberals.

In most academic disciplines, especially the social sciences and humanities, salary prospects for professors are vastly lower than what similarly capable individuals with M.B.A.s, rather than specialized Ph.D.s, could earn in the private sector. Why do some people still choose academic careers? They do so either because of the perceived prestige of the professoriat or because of the satisfaction they derive from teaching, advising, and doing basic research. In exchange for personal satisfaction, academics compromise on salary.

This do-gooder’s willingness to give up private gains for public benefits is a hallmark of liberal philosophy. Analogously, liberals tend to favor more taxation and greater public provision of goods and services. Conservatives prefer to keep more of their money for themselves, and to advocate less government involvement in everything. If you’d rather not give up potential earnings in exchange for the opportunity to mold young minds and create new knowledge for society, and would prefer to take a greater percentage of your compensation in the form of money, you are likely to avoid academia.

The preponderance of liberals in our colleges and universities does not stem solely from the preferences of hiring committees. Even in the absence of any hiring-committee prejudices, potential professors do not randomly “flow into academia” or “flow elsewhere.” These are smart people, and they are more than able to compare the benefits and costs of different career choices and select the career option that most appeals to them. Academia tends to be more appealing to liberals.

Here’s some international attention Newfoundland didn’t want. Mickey-mouse, kids:

The Toronto Raptors’ preseason game against the Cleveland Cavaliers was canceled Thursday because of condensation on the floor, which was laid over a hockey rink.

After the teams were introduced and the anthems performed, Raptors coach Kevin O’Neill and Cavs coach Paul Silas complained to officials about the heat in the building.

The players were sent back to their locker rooms, while kids wiped the floor with towels, and the heat was turned down.

Players tried to warm up again about 45 minutes after the scheduled start, but to no avail. The Cavaliers had already left the building for their bus while fans in the arena awaited word on whether the game would be played.

[...] It was raining, foggy and 64 degrees during the day — and a sellout crowd of 7,500 squeezed into Mile One Stadium, home to the St. John’s Maple Leafs of the AHL.

Dem hangovers are comin’ along just fine!

And here is St. John’s, Newfoundland. I decided to come down and investigate the post election carnage Actually, I shipped Trinity-Anne down here on Friday with my parents and I’m here now to pick her up and bring her back to Toronto on Sunday. It’s raining and windy but warm, as opposed to Toronto which has a chance of flurries, windy and cold.

More from me, perhaps depending on how all the hangovers shape up.

The “National” Post managed to fit in the Newfoundland election story on page A4. This is fairly understandable because we’re all dying to know what Cam Cole’s opinion on what should have been done to the Maple Leaf Gardens in 1999, and obviously this would take precedence for the front page (above the fold!).

Congratulations to Damian, who worked on the Tory campaign out on the west coast.

As they like to say periodically in Newfoundland, “the tide has turned“. This would normally be cause for at least a small celebration, but alas, if I know Newfoundland politics, this is merely a sign the electorate have figured that the Liberals have been wrung dry and it’s time to get government cash flowin’ again with a new bunch of crooks.

At least their dying days the Liberals didn’t try to go out in a blaze of glory with any Sprung Greenhouse-type level idiocies.

Q: So, how’s Danny going to deal with the half-billion dollar real deficit?
A: [sounds of birds chirping and crickets; a train horn blows far in the distance].