Hack Pundit Of The Week: David Warren

David Warren uses his latest column in the Ottawa Citizen to plead to keep his job at the paper. There really is no other cogent explanation for his ramblings. His entire diatribe revolves around attacking those that are better informed than he is and dare to support their statements with evidence. These people could replace him at any moment and are a threat to his livelihood! So he goes on in a circumlocutious way to argue that sociologists provide no insight to society's challenges. Instead, he asks that those whose writing offer little substance but a great deal of artifice be put in positions of prominence.

Thou Shalt Not Be Pertinent

It's no coincidence that David Warren's modus operandi consists of exactly that.

Make no mistake, David Warren has nothing worthwhile to say. Ever. About anything.

Yet there he is week after week in the Ottawa Citizen, blabbering away about his rigid religious beliefs.

Don't get me wrong! Religion, in itself, is an interesting topic. No, I'm talking about the type of religious tripe that's as desirable as a rash conferred by a syphilitic priest: the moralizing religiosity type.

Every week, the failed and ignored prophet of our age laments the lack of Jesus in our lives.

The cause of the Vancouver riots? Not enough Jesus.

Conflicts in the Middle East? Too much Mohammed.

People voting for progressive parties? Not enough Jesus.

Easter celebrations found wanting? Not enough Jesus.

Anthony Weiner mistakenly showing off his bulge on twitter? Needs more Jesus!

Okay! Fine! We get it! David Warren loves Jesus! There's nothing wrong with being a big Jesus booster. However, I do object to when someone feels compelled to explain every single human event through the lens of the abundance or lack of Jesus.

And when everyone groans in annoyance at the obsolescence of his writing, it isn't because it has a religious perspective; it's because he's irrelevant. For all his appreciation of Chinese mystic philosophers, it doesn't make him a better connoisseur of human nature. If he were able to derive wisdom from Taoism and apply it to specifics in our day and age, readers might be inclined to pay attention. However, he just speaks in superficial abstractions.

In this column, he embraces a do-nothing approach to oppose what he calls "nation-building" politicians who spend a great amount of time and effort to resolve "simple problems". He never specifies what "simple problems" he's referring to because he expects us to have read every single column he's ever written and divine his thoughts. And yet, not even a month ago, he argued that NATO should remain in Afghanistan. So much for his distaste for nation-building! It's a fine line between wise old sage and convoluted senile fool.

He further edifies us with the knowledge that statistics are the tools of the devil meant to "mislead and obscure". How so? True to form, he doesn't reveal this to us so I guess we should view it as an article of faith.

He does return to the 21st century briefly to address - for the third column in a row - the Vancouver riot. His preamble regarding Chinese philosophy followed by his babbling about the ineffectiveness of humanist activism leads up to the distillation of his thoughts into this question: "What does [the Vancouver riot] look like?"

Confucius say: Man who have hand in pockets not crazy, just feeling nuts.

For crying out loud, it looks like a sports riot!

It's a variation from the sports riots found in Montreal, Boston, Buenos Aires, Columbus, Genoa, Curitiba, Cologne, Moscow and Minneapolis. Rioters are not "zombies" or "demonic forces" but I'm sure he feels very relieved to think that rioters belong to a perverse subset of the population. That way, he doesn't have to deal with reality.

For David Warren, that's just the way he likes it.


To suppress the toxicity of David Warren: I give you fun, fun, fun, fun, fun!

What The Asbestos Debate Is About

"This government will not put Canadian industry in a position where it is discriminated against in a market where sale is permitted." -Stephen Harper

In my previous post, I had established the Conservatives know that asbestos is unsafe, they know it's unpopular and they also know it's not of vital economic interest.

What other natural resource is unsafe and unpopular in Canada?

The tar sands.

Image not found in Fort McMurray's
Tourism Association's picture gallery

Negative stories about the oil and gas development in Alberta keep popping up. Recently, oil spills of the Rainbow Pipeline caused health problems for the Lubicon Cree and terrible environmental damage with its 28,000 barrels being leaked. Then there was the pipeline leak in the Northwest Territories where 1,500 barrels came pouring out. The owners of the pipeline, Enbridge, had originally reported that only 4 barrels of oil had leaked out of the pipeline. Also, there's news that the Caribou are dying out in Alberta as a result of tar sand development. It's so unpopular that Canada tried to hide the tar sands' carbon emissions to the UN.

However, it is a huge source of economic revenue.

CTV reports "By 2010-2011, the province expects oil sands royalties to roar to $3.2-billion, a 75-per-cent hike that will see bitumen production provide 45 per cent of the province's total oil and gas royalties.

By 2012-2013, the oil sands will form 53 per cent of Alberta's royalty stream, which will represent a quarter of total provincial revenues."

139,000 Albertans are employed in Alberta’s mining and oil and gas extraction sectors.

Currently, there are two obstacles in the way of increasing tar sands production:

1) British Columbians

2) Americans

Alberta can increase production but it believes it has no means to distribute the additional bitumen. As a result, there have been two new proposed pipeline projects that would increase distribution so new tar sands projects could receive the green light. Those are the TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline to the US and Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline to the British Columbia coast. One pipeline for the Americans and the other that would send oil to China. The ruling BC Liberals are waiting for a full environmental impact study before making a decision on the province's proposed pipeline. It's results could come after the next provincial election in 2013.  The Americans are delaying a decision on theirs until the end of the year.

For the US, the hesitancy comes as a result of over 800,000 barrels of tar sands crude leaking into the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan from another Enbridge pipeline. Building another pipeline comes with environmental costs and even higher risks. But creating additional pipelines will result in more toxic holding ponds, increased strip-mining of forests and pollution of the Albertan watersheds.

It's unsure how the US will move on this issue. In BC, if the provincial NDP were to win the next election, it's all but certain that they would refuse to go ahead with the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.

So how are the tar sands and asbestos related precisely?

If the Conservatives were to apply self-imposed restrictions on chrysotile for moral reasons, it would set a negative precedent for the oil and gas industry. Investors managed to receive a $58 million loan to bankroll their mining operations in Asbestos. If the Canadian government then changes the conditions by which they agreed to invest into a Canadian industry, it would set off alarm bells to prospective oil sand investors. Pesky regulation that lists products as hazardous material tends to cut into profit margins and deter investors. Pesky regulation that lists products as environmentally destructive do the same thing.

Unlike the asbestos industry's bankroll of $58 million, the oil sands projects are expected to secure investments up to $2.1 trillion. A total of forty-seven new projects could get underway between now and 2035.

You don't invest trillions of dollars in oil sands projects if you believe a shift to renewable energy policies is imminent.

Recently, a University of Regina researcher was awarded a $1.25 million grant to study the possible effects of climate change on the Prairies. Climate scientists have already determined that the tar sands already produce more carbon emissions than all of cars on Canadian roads. In recent years, the Prairies have been hit with various droughts, fires and floods that have impacted rural communities most of all. 

Taking a moral stand against a Canadian industry would create great pressure that equal allowances be made against the tar sands. It would signal that the federal government could take action against a Canadian industry  if it deems its effects as running counter to the values of Canadians. If climate scientists are able to tie the increasingly extreme weather with climate change, the measure of the West's dependence on oil will look at the tar sands with less of a shrug and more as a clarion call to shift to green energy. While the tar sands projects represent less than 1/10 of 1% of carbon dioxyde emissions around the world, it is the new front in the war as to whether to transition to renewable green energy or continue our dependence on fossil fuels.  

Is it any surprise that Environment Canada was hit hard by budget cuts which will result in dozens of climate scientists losing their jobs?

Consider the external report from Alberta Innovates that criticized Alberta's Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP) for failing to meet 8 of its 9 mandated objectives. When regulatory bodies whose mission is to "achieve a holistic understanding of potential effects of oil sands development on aquatic systems" are unable to perform their jobs adequately, the public is not being adequately informed.

Also consider the role of the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB). It's meant to be an "independent, quasi-judicial agency of the Government of Alberta" that regulates "the safe, responsible, and efficient development of Alberta's energy resources: oil, natural gas, oil sands, coal, and pipelines". However, their press releases during the Rainbow pipeline leak indicates that their major preoccupation is to downplay events and serve as a PR department for energy companies. At least their latest press release regarding the most recent pipeline explosion to date no longer insists that pipeline leaks are rare.

What's clear is that the environmental protection measures aren't keeping up with the rate of oil sand production projects. Furthermore, there's no real initiative to keep track of all its effects on the environment. So while the press, the pundits and the public cry "shame" on asbestos and the Jeffrey mine, Stephen Harper is more than willing to sport the black eye of asbestos to not scare away tar sands investors.

This is, after all, a principled position.

What The Asbestos Debate Isn't About

"This government will not put Canadian industry in a position where it is discriminated against in a market where sale is permitted." -Stephen Harper (April 26th, 2011)

Chrysotile is "ethical" asbestos

Despite Christian Paradis repeating that "chrysotile can be used in a safe and controlled manner", the Conservatives don't believe it. They know the risks. They've read the report from Health Canada and rejected its recommendations. They know the health risks of asbestos on unsuspecting workers as Chuck Struhl even urged them to have the substance listed as a hazardous product. Canada was the only Western country to oppose adding chrysotile in the Annex 3 list at the Rotterdam Convention. The NDP, Liberals and Green Party are all against the current policy of the Conservative Party on this issue. Strangely, the Tories even recognize the hazardous properties of chrysotile.

So why continue with this course of action?

Is it about the revenues of the asbestos industry? It's an industry that makes $100 million in revenue and provides for 400 Quebec jobs. Certainly not peanuts but let's keep things in perspective. It accounts for less than 1% of Quebec's $10,598 millions of revenue in mineral and mineral products. Chrysotile makes up 2% of the total 18,000 mining jobs in Quebec. However, considering Premier Jean Charest's upcoming Plan Nord, mining expertise will come at a premium. So much so that it's expected that many foreign workers will be brought in to meet the demand for qualified mining labour.

The NDP opposition is simply asking that it be listed as a hazardous material, not demanding an outright ban on the product. It wouldn't cripple the Quebec or Canadian economies and miners wouldn't lose their jobs.

So I ask again: why continue with this course of action?

The columnists at the National Post believe they know the answer. Chris Selley writes "here in Wee Canada, of course, we understand perfectly: One simply mustn't risk angering Quebec." Kelly McParland suggests that "while it may yet begin pandering to Quebec interests, in the case of asbestos [the NDP] appears prepared to put health concerns over political interests."

I've previously blogged about the terrible legacy of the asbestos industry in Quebec on the workers health and labour relations.

The National Post seems indifferent to the fact that 75% of Quebecers were against the reopening of the Jeffrey mine that's producing the exported chrysotile. Also, consider that the deeply divisive issue of Shale gas extraction is met with a 55% disapproval rating. Furthermore, 63% of Quebecers are against the commercialization of their drinking water. Overall, Quebecers tend to sway on the side of environmental preservation of their natural resources and habitats over its commercialization. So the Conservatives do themselves no favors with the majority of Quebecers by taking this stance. If they're not doing it for election votes 4 or 5 years down the road, and the National Post columnists are wrong (are they ever right?), I keep coming back to the same question:

Why continue with this course of action?

To recap: they know it's unsafe, they know it's unpopular and they know it's not of vital economic interest.

What other Canadian industry is unsafe and unpopular in Canada?

Find out.

The Gazette's Ian MacDonald Writes a Love Letter to Jim Flaherty

The Montreal Gazette's L. Ian MacDonald's newest column is somewhere between tawdry financial porn and steamy fiscal erotica. The apple of his eye: Jim Flaherty. He begins by a tantalizing thought that Jim Flaherty refused, yes refused, to be picked up for a speech in Toronto. Instead, the Finance Minister decides to slum it with the rest of the rabble by going to the GO train from Whitby to Toronto. Flaherty isn't worried about that early morning rough-and-tumble commuter train crowd.

"We will not run a deficit." (09/10/2008)

"Total cost to taxpayers, assuming he kept his ticket as a receipt: $7.50." How fiscally orgasmic!

"But that's Flaherty" Indeed it is, Ian. He's just that dreamy!

"'There's lots of foreign direct investment in Canada,' Flaherty says, 'and lots of people are buying the Canadian dollar.' The highflying loonie might be a problem for Canadian exporters, but Flaherty has called it 'the price of success.'"

The price of success? Let's take a look at Canadian success.




It sure looks like we're getting a huge rise of foreign capital. Our throbbing economy seems really rock solid. But let's pull some of the layers away to see what it really looks like. The wood and paper industry? Flaccid. Machinery and transportation equipment industry? That's gone limp. Service and retailing industry? That was growing and growing until the Conservatives got into power and now it's struggling to stay up. The all-inclusive "other industries"? That's remained flat since 2008. No, the only gains in foreign investments have been energy and finance.

Well, we all know about the blight that are the tar sands and its carbon emissions.

But less is known about why our finance sector is so profitable and attracting so many foreign investors. What is spurring so much growth in The Big Five? Its increased interest rates on loans! So Canadian households must be brimming with cash if banks can afford to raise interest rates on mortgages, right? Apparently not! The CBC reports "if that debt was spread evenly among all Canadians, the typical family with two children would owe an estimated $176,461 in household debt." and that "one-third of retired households carrying an average debt of $60,000".

So Canadian banks are finding the greatest gains by squeezing average Canadians which are already hurting financially.

That doesn't deter Ian MacDonald from his infatuation with Flaherty! He looks at the rest of the world and no one is as attractive as Flaherty's Canada. One look at the US and MacDonald can see that their structural deficit makes the country appear rather homely. Odd, the rise in health care costs coupled with the lowering of corporate tax rates had PBO Kevin Page declare that Canada's deficit was structural as well...

"Youth unemployment is something like 18 per cent." our beloved Flaherty informs us of the American neighbors.

That's a scary number! In Canada, it's 14 per cent. And it's a bit more complicated than just a flat percentage rate in the US since they calculate it a bit differently. If you're 16 to 19 years old in the US, the unemployment rate is 24%. If you're 20 to 24 years old, it drops down to 14.7%. So any claim to youth employment superiority is rather dubious. And just like in Canada, their dropout rate is slowly declining.

After glancing at that trollop Greece and that hussy Ireland, MacDonald parrots the Minister that their banks should receive another bailout. It's interesting that Flaherty is suggesting governments intervening into the economy to lessen the impact of an economic downturn. He was the visionary that suggested an economic stimulus for Canada in the first place, was he not?

Remember the dreaded 2008 coalition? Stéphane Dion, Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton got together to oust the Conservatives. Then prorogation happened and Liberals suffered from spontaneous party combustion. What was the reason behind it all? Oh yeah! Jim Flaherty didn't want to add a stimulus package to the budget despite predictable massive job losses on the horizon.

Yes, the great sage that is Jim Flaherty heard the same news of an incoming worldwide recession due to the collapse of the world economy and his preoccupation was with deficits. Every other federal party recognized the impending peril that face Canadian workers and urged the Conservatives to implement a stimulus but he'd have none of it!

Maybe I'm too harsh on the MP for Whitby-Oshawa. After all, he does get it right when he suggests that Greece and Ireland should get an additional financial rescue package. But how is that surprising when every, single economist has been suggesting the same course of action?

But MacDonald sees no flaws in him.

"He's now the ranking finance minister in the G7, and Canada will have something to say about this in the inner councils of the IMF."

Strange. The IMF warned last year of Canada's household debt and its increasing health care costs. The Conservatives have been muted regarding health care transfers to provinces past 2014. Considering most provinces spend about half their budgets on health care, a little bit of clarity and predictability would be appreciated. And while they've putted around the problem by tightening some mortgage requirements, nothing has been done to cap interest rates on credit cards where the average Canadian has racked up $26,000 worth of debt.

Uncertainly in health care and a growing economic bubble. I guess it's true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Hack Pundit Of The Week: Kelly McParland

In 1949, French-Canadian asbestos miners sought better working conditions from its English-Canadian and American companies. The miners had some basic demands: that the hourly wage be increased to one dollar, union security, a pension plan and measures to contain the spreading of silicosis, a lung disease caused by inhalation of dust from asbestos. Comparatively to the rest of Canadian workers, these were modest demands. Regardless, negotiations failed. Anti-union Premier Maurice Duplessis would now get to choose the arbitrator to decide the case.

Unreasonably expecting to not
be poisoned by their employers

 On February 13th, 1949, the workers decide to strike. Only a few days later, Duplessis calls the strike illegal and the provincial police is called in. Scabs are then hired to replace the miners. Clashes erupt between police and workers who try to stop the strikebreakers. The traditionally anti-union Catholic Church unexpectedly defends the workers and provides relief for the strikers and their families who had to live off of $5 a week from their union funds. For this betrayal, Archbishop Joseph Charbonneau is exiled to British Columbia by Duplessis.

Things comes to a head on May 5th, when police threaten to shoot the strikers. The miners stand down and the next day, hundreds are arrested, beaten and even a Church is ransacked.

In Quebec, there's been a higher rate of diseases such as mesothelioma, pulmonary cancers, and asbestosis due to the asbestos industry. Nowhere is it more prevalent than in those who worked with the substance on a daily basis. The strike and the legacy of the asbestos industry are a part of the history of Quebec and Canada.

On June 15th, 2011, hack pundit Kelly McParland decided to write a column about the asbestos industry - whose Jeffrey Mine was green lit for reopening by deeply unpopular Premier Jean Charest's Liberals and Stephen Harper's Conservatives - to insinuate that the NDP's opposition to it goes against its "political interests". He suggests that "the NDP’s latest assault on Quebec’s asbestos industry takes on an added piquancy given how deeply the party is now beholden to the province’s favour."

That's a deeply partisan view of the issue to say the least. While the NDP has had policies that Quebecers found favorable, it didn't reinvent its message to cater to the province. A little bit of research involving all of one google search would have yielded McParland the information that on the asbestos issue, the industry is a national shame. He would have found that 75% of Quebecers are against the reopening of the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos.

Laziness in columnists is not a new phenomenon. But what intrigues me the most is the manner in which his laziness manifests itself. His lackluster column could have been written differently and, needless to say, more honestly. McParland could have opined about how how the Conservatives support for this industry is deepening the gap between the party and Quebecers. Or how this international stain on the reputation of Quebec and Canada aggravates both Quebecers and Canadians.

Instead, he tries to perpetuate his preexisting misconception that Quebecers are always self-interested. It's a familiar narrative and easily believed by those that see Quebecers exclusively through antagonism. It just so happens to be wrong.

When Kelly McParland decided that he'd create a boiler plate conservative column for the week, he went to his favorite subjects: the NDP is at risk of losing all of its support at any given moment and the nefarious people of Quebec are pulling all the strings of the NDP. So when the reality is that the NDP has always held the view that the asbestos industry is a hazard and that the great majority of Canadians are united in that view, the only real story is the Conservative refusing to listen to its constituency and are acting with a blatant disregard of the recommendations of Health Canada.

The press is meant to play an adversarial role to government and hold them accountable regardless of party affiliation. Columnists are supposed to inform the public on complicated issues in order to provide greater transparency regardless if the position will be opposed ideologically to the orthodoxy of its readership.

But who am I kidding? Kelly McParland writes a column for the National Post.

The Sociology Behind Unsportsmanlike And Aggressive Behavior Of Fans

Because every columnist, sports commentator and pundit decided to weigh-in on the Vancouver sports riot, I thought I'd look at it from a sociological and psychological point of view. Firstly, it needs to be pointed out that a sports riot will occur in a city when fans feel a deep attachment to the sport. That is why you see hockey riots in Canada, soccer riots in Europe and football riots in the US. I mean, a hockey riot in England is just plain silly.

So here is a psychological and sociological perspective on the subject from Dan Wann and Merrill Melnick:

All rioters must be rational participants

"Psychological approaches to spectator aggression tend to focus on the impact of specific aspects of a spectator’s personality and unique physical factors found within spectator environments. Conversely, sociological viewpoints tend to rely on the impact of larger sociological phenomena such as culture, social structure and social environments. However, it is essential to both perspectives to recognize that there are four levels of spectator aggression, and policies must be developed to address each level of aggression.


• Level One – Spontaneous reaction by an individual or small group to individual events that occur during a contest (e.g., verbal taunts or throwing projectiles after a bad call).
• Level Two – Premeditated acts by a large group (e.g., rehearsed chants intended to demean coaches, athletes or officials by a group of fans).
• Level Three – Thousands of fans storming the court or field after a game, oftentimes destroying property in the process.
• Level Four – Riots that occur after the event, involving the same number, if not more, of fans as level three, and that occur beyond the stadium or arena. Unlike fans in level three, many of those involved in level-four riots did not attend the game. There are various micro (individual) and macro (group) level causes for spectator aggression in athletics. Theories related to each are outlined below:

Individual

Identification – Fans form strong bonds and identify with their teams (e.g., fans who “bleed the school colors”). The successes and failures of the team are also the successes and failures of the individual fan. Great wins or disappointing losses are felt deeply by the fan and may be expressed by aggressive or violent behavior.
Social Learning Theory – Fans learn to act aggressively by watching the aggressive acts of others. For example, the poor sportsmanship of coaches and athletes leads to poor sportsmanship among fans. Also, media highlights of spectator aggression and fan violence on college campuses contribute to fans adopting similar behavior because fans see media coverage as validation or promotion of the activity.
Need for Excitement – In greater society, opportunities for people to take risks have been decreasing in recent decades, leading people to search for excitement in activities that carry a degree of personal risk (e.g., spectator aggression).
Deterrents – Spectator aggression is the result of weak negative sanctions and the public’s failure to condemn the violence. This theory, however, is limited inasmuch as it assumes the fan is a rational thinker (at the time of deviance) and that he/she has accurate information about the ramifications of his/her actions.
Alcohol – Alcohol can lead to an increase in fan aggression. It provides fans with a type of liquid confidence to do things they normally would not. Institutions can easily address alcohol consumption near and/or during athletics events through increased enforcement of open container and underage drinking laws. However, alcohol prohibition should not be viewed as a panacea. Eliminating alcohol from the sporting environment will not eliminate incidents of fan violence. There are multiple reactions to alcohol consumption, and the vast majority of people involved in sports riots are not inebriated.
Anonymity – Large crowds enhance a person’s perception that he or she is anonymous. When this anonymity is coupled with the belief that any punishment meted out will fall on someone else, fans may feel more emboldened.

Group

Expressive Sports Riots – The emotional arousal engendered by the outcome of the game, be it joy and ecstasy or grief and anger, leads to a loss of normal restraint, or disinhibition among groups of fans.
Emergent Norms Theory – Deviant behavior becomes more likely as crowds adopt antisocial behavior they consider appropriate for a particular period of time or situation. As more people get involved, the rest of the fans conform to the antisocial behavior.
Convergence Theory – Greater numbers of homogeneous people in a crowd (e.g., a large male fan section) lead to higher levels of arousal and lessened inhibitions, thereby increasing the likelihood of collective behavior (e.g., taunts, storming the field).
Contagion Theory – Ideas, moods and behaviors begin with one person and can become rapidly communicated and accepted by crowd members. Thus, once a few fans decide to run onto the field or begin rioting, the other fans in the area can quickly adopt that behavior.
Culture – For many fans, it has become tradition to exhibit poor sportsmanship. Fans sometimes interpret spectator aggression, when repeatedly shown on television or learned from parents or peers, as approval. In a broader sense, sport is just a microcosm of greater society’s developing culture of violence."

So the next time you read or hear about the next sports riot and pundits wax and wane about the reasons behind it all, remember that it's been observed, studied and analyzed already. And if you have trouble understanding why this happens, just think of what "fan" is short for.

The "Tough on Crime" Myth - Part II

Previously, I argued that increasing our punitive prison system was a detriment to the country and a different approach was necessary. Now I'd like to shift focus to preventative measures that are "tough on crime".

What can be done to reduce criminality? The answer: create a national preschool program.

Learning to share is "Tough on Crime"

We know that precursors to crime are poverty, drug abuse and mental illness. Recent studies show: the vicious cycle of poverty and prison, the impact of preschools on the poor to reduce crime and substance abuse and the high rates of return to human capital investment in disadvantaged children. You can read all those articles but you'd be better off just listening to NPR's Planet Money podcast (although the Slate and Mother Jones articles aren't covered there).

In the US, they found that many job retraining programs for the poor were ineffective. For those that had trouble integrating the workforce, it wasn't a matter of cognitive skills such as reading or writing that was holding them back but rather a lack of something called "soft skills": interactions with people, eye-contact, smiling, openness to new experiences, curiosity, confidence, promptness, focus and the ability to control your temper.

These are skills you learn at an early age and a single mother with no resources, little to no help from family and limited education will struggle to provide an environment for a child to develop those skills. As you get older, it's tougher to learn these skills. In the Perry Preschool Program Experiment, the findings were eye-opening between the "treated group" and the "control group". Keep in mind, all of these disenfranchised kids attended the same elementary school, middle-school and high-school. The only difference in education was that the "treated group" got to go to preschool while the "control group" didn't get the opportunity.

Educational outcomes for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 27 follow-up

• Completed an average of almost 1 full year more of schooling (11.9 years vs. 11 years)
• Spent an average of 1.3 fewer years in special education services — e.g., for mental, emotional, speech, or learning impairment (3.9 years vs. 5.2 years)
• 44 percent higher high school graduation rate (66% vs. 45%)

Pregnancy outcomes for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 27 follow-up

• Much lower proportion of out-of-wedlock births (57% vs. 83%)
• Fewer teen pregnancies on average (0.6 pregnancies/woman vs. 1.2 pregnancies/woman)

Lifetime criminal activity for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 40 follow-up

• 46 percent less likely to have served time in jail or prison (28% vs. 52%)
• 33 percent lower arrest rate for violent crimes (32% vs. 48%)

Economic outcomes for preschool group (versus control group):
At age 40 follow-up

• 42 percent higher median monthly income ($1,856 vs. $1,308)
• 26 percent less likely to have received government assistance (e.g. welfare, food stamps) in the past ten years (59% vs. 80%)

For every dollar that was put into for the underprivileged child's preschool, the government made up between $30 and $300 over that individual's lifetime.

Here's another preschool study from Science:

Decreased chances of felony charges and substance abuse for those that were enrolled in preschools. 

Canada is undoubtedly different than the United States of America. But consider correctional services expenditures totalled almost $3 billion in 2006. The new crime bills will add nearly $2 billion over 5 years and will have an additional maintenance cost of $618 million. In Quebec, daycare spending amounts to $1.8 billion annually and serves 209,000 children or about 70% of Quebec children under the age of five.

It really comes down to priorities. Doesn't it make sense to implement a national daycare system that will have an impact on decreasing drug abuse and crime? At the minimum, it's clearly beneficial to provide one for those living in poverty. In return, these individuals are more likely to hold higher paying jobs that will increase tax revenue to the state.

Unfortunately, for the next 4 years, there won't be any movement on this. All the members of the Conservative Party could read the studies, measure the cost in Canada, see the long-term savings and still conclude that because it runs counter to their ideology, it's not worth pursuing.

Instead, we get a crackdown on marijuana permits and pushing for mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. The same policies that have helped bankrupt the State of California to the point where their Supreme Court has ordered them to release over 40,000 prisoners.

Conservative priorities? Sure. Tough on crime? Hardly.

The Huffington Post Is Not A Sweatshop

The Huffington Post, which has recently launched its Canadian version, receives both praise and criticism from all sorts of people. The Right hates it because it's progressive voice online. It serves as an aggregate news site that caters to progressives and combines it with op-eds of various Left-wing personalities.

Arianna Huffington: feeds on the tears
of progressive bloggers

There is some hate from the Left as well though as made evident by the HuffPo and AOL merger. Arianna Huffington gets $315 million to join the AOL family and not a cent goes to the bloggers? The same bloggers that made the site a success in the first place? The injustice of it all!

Give me a break.

Would the Huffington Post have been as popular being just an aggregate news site without the bloggers? Doubtful. But those bloggers were never promised any money and, indeed, they certainly never got any. They did, however, get to raise their profile by writing their opinions and providing insight on a platform that is receptive to their ideas. It's no different than having your letter to the editor or guest op-ed published by a prominent newspaper. That's a feather in your cap that you can display prominently. But what about an expert on a certain subject? Would he expect a newspaper to pay him for his insight on a particular news story? Certainly not.

A blogger might write a guest column to publicize his latest book, raise awareness to an obscure problem or just increase awareness for a cause that is near and dear to his heart. Those that collect the various news items and opinions get paid while those that offer an opinion, get extra exposure. If it is no longer worth it to get free publicity from the Huffington Post, another smart progressive voice will fill the gap and try to springboard to a larger audience.

If a similar platform like HuffPo existed which provided honorariums to its guest columnists, would it be more popular and profitable? Until someone bothers to finance such an endeavor, the point remains moot.

Hack Pundit Of The Week: Bronwyn Eyre

I often wonder if newspapers aren't better off publishing high school essays instead of paying columnists. The writing might suffer but the research would be much better.

Case in point: Bronwyn Eyre's new column in Saskatoon's Star Phoenix focusing on climate change.

What makes it particularly execrable is her utter lack of effort in researching the topic. In it, she scrawls all the inane arguments of climate deniers regarding climate change. She goes from one uninformed cliché to another without a cohesive narrative.

Climate Scientists as found in MacBeth?

She begins by questioning the $1.25 million grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to study the role of climate change in natural disasters on the Prairies. As stated in Regina's Leader Post, it will focus on two things: "how communities (particularly rural areas and First Nations) deal with things like drought and flooding, and how much those disasters are due to global warming."

There's interest in doing this as the region has been hit by severe floods, droughts and fires recently. But linking those to climate change? "Sounds a bit like witchcraft reasoning to me", she says.

It's actually the opposite of witchcraft. Whether it's paleoclimatology, historical climatology or paleotempestology; they are all branches of the same science. And science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world. Our knowledge changes according to what is proven and verifiable. Witchcraft is a set of neo-pagan beliefs that involve divination, magic and spirits. So no, it's really not like witchcraft.

What bothers her so much about research that would check if there is a link between extreme weather in the Prairies and climate change? She doesn't say. She just goes on about tornadoes in the US and enlightens us with the notion that there has been extreme weather phenomenons in the past.

Mind = blown. 

I guess climate change is a fraud now because there's been a drought in the 1930s and a big flood in the 1970s. 

Should we also then argue that because there was crime in the past, any increase in frequency and severity shouldn't be studied by criminologists and simply be dismissed as a concern? 

A particularly annoying trait of her column is the way she alternates weather and climate as if they were synonyms. For Bronwyn Eyre, meteorology and climatology are one and the same. She further goes on to say that "the past informs the present". Interestingly, that's exactly what climatologists believe as well: they study the past, analyze the present to better predict the future. Strangely, there is a consensus among these scientists that there is "evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" but maybe we should dismiss them and listen to the lawyer with a background in art.

She then goes on about Britain, the Middle-Ages and the "Little Ice Age". She mischaracterizes this last term as "a period of cooling between 1150 and 1850" when it is, in fact:

A cold period that lasted from about A.D. 1550 to about A.D. 1850 in Europe, North America, and Asia. This period was marked by rapid expansion of mountain glaciers, especially in the Alps, Norway, Ireland, and Alaska. There were three maxima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals. (NASA Earth Observatory)

After her obfuscation, she asks: "Could it be the weather's always been a bit wacky and prone to periods of extremes?"

Good question, Bronwyn! Who should we ask this question to? Lawyers or climate scientists? Here's one study that identifies that the inherent variability of the climate was not responsible for this change and here's another. While it's very difficult to determine the causes of climate change centuries ago and there are various theories concerning this phenomenon ranging from orbital cycles to solar activity. Regardless of what happened hundreds of years ago, there is no dissenting opinion from scientific bodies with national or international standing that climate change over the last 50 years is occurring and it's mostly man-made. And what does the fact that people have "skated on the Thames" have to do with the Prairies?

It's only at the very end of her column that she returns to the Prairies but instead of taking on the science head-on, she uses a tried and true argument which can be summed up as: 

I stuck my head out the window in the Summer and it was cold. I thought there was some global warming going on!

Not quite those words but the same irreproachable logic is employed to argue her position. Here would be the rebuttal:

(NASA)

If you look at the graph, you'll see that there are variations from year to year in the temperature. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down. But it's been trending upwards for the last 50 years at a remarkably fast pace as our carbon emissions have increased dramatically. 

Or maybe we should just rely on Bronwyn Eyre's personal anecdotes and memories to determine whether climate change is real. That should be the true real litmus test.

As she labors through her imbecilic arguments, she delivers her final desperate fallacy by invoking the so-called "Climategate" scandal. This is a scandal only to those that live in the echo-chamber of right-wing news. If you bring up "Climategate" to a climate change denier, they'll know all about the emails about "the trick" to "hide the decline" of "the real temps". Here's what they don't tell you: US and British officials investigated and cleared the scientists of any wrongdoing. For an explanation as to why, read this or even better, watch the video below.

Briefly, using the word "trick" is clandestine because FOX News wishes it to be so. "Hide the decline" of "the real temps" refers to the divergence of the monitored temperatures between tree-ring data with the other measuring tools such as rocks, sediments, ice sheets, corals, shells and microfossils since 1960. Because of this divergence and apparent inaccuracy, one climatologist used the technique of no longer using tree-ring data on their graphs past 1960 (although identifying clearly this practice in his research paper) - which would "decline" - and instead, would show "the real temps" from all the other temperature measuring tools that provided data. So the "trick" is to stop displaying tree-ring data on graphs after 1960 since it's unreliable - but identifying that you're doing so - and relying on other instrumental records and independent proxies.

Eyre finishes her diatribe by asking for "unadulterated, empirical evidence" of climate change. 

Is that even possible for Ms. Eyre? What if I did have proof? Would it change her mind? Would she then accept the findings of the scientific community?

Would she demand that the scientist not be part of the existing climatology community? Would Richard A. Muller - the scientist that screeched loudest about "Climategate" - be a satisfactory choice to conduct this scientific research? What if his research were funded in part by Charles Koch, the energy magnate? Would that be enough to assuage her doubts?

Here's the preliminary report of his findings from the Berkeley Earth Institute.

"We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups."

I don't expect Ms. Eyre to change her mind. Climatology is like witchcraft to her and the Church of Climate Denial is her place of worship.

"Unwinding Hide the Decline"

Cultural Amuse-Bouche: The Mona Lisa Curse

The world of modern art is inaccessible to many of us. In the documentary The Mona Lisa Curse (2008), Robert Hughes explains why that's the case. He traces it all the way back to 1962 when Leonardo Da Vinci's The Mona Lisa painting was lent to museums in the US. A great mass of people came to see it but the action of going to see it became more important than absorbing the artistic people of the work of art. It became a status symbol to have seen this painting and what you thought of the artist's work was a distant secondary concern. The demand to see it was so great that many museum goers would simply walk by it without having the opportunity to take-in its details.

"For The Love of God"
is right

When Hughes makes the argument, part of me was ready to point to scream elitist as I'm prone to do. But he describes the different steps that's led to the commodification of the art world. Again, I don't have a problem that works of art appreciate in monetary value. There's no inherent evil in getting greater pay for your work. What Hughes points to as problematic, is the change in the perception of the value of the work of art. Formerly the value was associated to beauty, now it's associated to monetary value. He explores the role of auction houses in determining tastes and art as a status symbol.

So consider much of the prevalent pop art today; it should resonate with the middle class. This art should be within our frame of reference and its meaning be accessible and yet, more often that not, it doesn't speak to the culture. We're left puzzled, grasping at theories and inventing reasons why this is good art when in reality, it's quite terrible. This documentary gives us a history of that shift; Exit Through The Gift Shop produces a prime example of it; Waste Land delivers us hope that not all contemporary art is garbage and does, at times, change people's lives.

Fame is a fickle food

Upon a shifting plate,

Whose table once a Guest, but not

The second time, is set.

Whose crumbs the crows inspect,

And with ironic caw

Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn;

Men eat of it and die.

--Emily Dickinson

Totally NOT going to finish my post with Ode to a Grecian Urn...



The Mona Lisa Curse

American-Flavored Crazy: Rick Scott

Republican governor Rick Scott of the great state of Florida (the destination of choice for Canadian retirees) is finishing up his 5-day trade mission to Canada. He'll be meeting with members of the business community as well as Quebec Premier Jean Charest and Toronto mayor Rob Ford in order to drum up business and tourism. In fact, on Wednesday, he announced that Montreal-based Guarda would move its US offices from California to Florida and provide for 100 high-paying jobs. More on that a bit later...

Rick Scott works hard
 to make Florida work hard
for Rick Scott

So who is Rick Scott, you ask?

He's a man whose made his fortune in providing health care in America. US health care has been very profitable for the governor. However, when he was CEO of HCA/Columbia, the largest private for-profit health care provider in America, the company was embroiled in a scandal in which it overcharged the government. HCA was fined $1.7 billion in fines. He resigned and was paid $9.88 million in a settlement as well owning 10 million shares of stock worth over $350 million.

You would think that with a background connected to defrauding the government, he'd make a poor political candidate. Well, you're wrong! He financed his own political campaign to the tune of $60 million, more than twice his opponent, and rode the wave of the Tea Party to win the 2010 gubernatorial election.

Electoral advertising convinced the public that despite being the head of the company responsible for the biggest fraud case in the history of the US, he didn't know anything about it nor was he ever charged with any crime. The part about not being charged with a crime is documented. The part about not knowing anything about it, that's the grey area. Federal investigators found that executives had offered financial incentives to doctors in exchange for patient referrals, in violation of federal law, according to lawsuits the Justice Department filed against the company in 2001. Did he know about this? CEOs can't be expected to know what business practices their executives employ to increase sales, can they?

He passed a bill, now contested in the courts, that would allow the Sunshine State to test for drugs in welfare recipients. "It is unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction", Scott says. Mind you, the State is not expected to pass similar laws for employees in businesses that receive tax subsidies, politicians that are recipients of public funds or taxpayers that get tax deductions.

Although he won a narrow the election by little over 1% over his Democrat opponent and less than 50% of the total ballots, Rick Scott feels he has a clear mandate. With the Florida House and Senate both controlled by the Republicans, he has a strong, stable, Republican majority.

And besides discriminating against poor people, he's got plans on health care. In between his time at HCA and now as governor of Florida, he founded Solantic (2001) and invested in Pharmaca (2003). The first provides urgent care services, immunizations, physicals, drug screening, and care for injured workers. The second operates drugstores/pharmacies that offer vitamins, herbal medicine, skin products, homeopathic medicines, and prescriptions. That's right, drugstores that combines the real prescriptions with junk homeopathic remedies. Rick Scott overhauled Florida's Medicaid program - which covers the poor and the disabled - to allow private health care providers, like Solantic, to have a greater influence in determining the range of coverage recipients will be allowed to get. And how fortuitous is it that Solantic provides drug screenings?

You'd think that would be a conflict of interest? Wrong again! He transferred his private interests to his wife when he became governor. This takes contempt to a whole new level!

Oh, and that deal to move Garda's US office to Florida? It was being negotiated well before he ever took office. But let's hear him explain it:

I am confident after just a few days in Canada – I got here on Monday – that other companies will follow Garda's lead and either initiate or expand business with Florida.

It seems that the best way to expand your business in Florida is to be partially owned by Rick Scott.

Blunder of the Week: Pauline Marois

Some politicians have bad weeks and then there are politicians that have BAD weeks.

Such is the case of Pauline Marois, the current leader of the Parti Québécois.

It's impossible to give a brief history of the in-fighting within the PQ because, as long as I remember, it's entire history is comprised of in-fighting. It's all very bitter, divisive and acrimonious. It makes for a fantastic soap opera!

So what's the latest in this sovereignist saga?

I cannot hear you when you're
 so low beneath me

Behind it all is bill 204, also known as "let's pay for Pierre Karl Peladeau's arena in Quebec City". This was a private members' bill from the PQ's Agnès Maltais. As the details of the deal got clearer - no guarantees on an eventual team coming to Quebec City, no guarantees that a team would have to remain a certain length of time, Peladeau paying nearly no rent for this extremely expensive arena - the rumbles within the party got louder. Two hundred million dollars in disbursements is a lot of money for a Quebec government that operates in the red. Furthermore, the deal wasn't made available to open bidding and likely illegal. You can usually contest these deals in court, however, a clause in the bill made it exempt from legal recourse. Call it the Berlusconi clause, if you will.

Did I mention none of this was discussed inside the PQ caucus? Instead, Pauline Marois exclaimed that questioning this deal and causing delays was merely "fooling around".

This didn't go over too well within her own party.

On Monday, three of the PQ's heavyweights, Pierre Curzi, Louise Lapointe and Lisette Beaudoin left the party. These were hardline separatists that disagreed with the direction of the party and felt this bill was more evidence of this. Lisette Lapointe's point of view was:

The Parti Québécois that I leave is characterized by an authority that's out of order, dominated by a desire for power. The atmosphere became unbearable.

The next day, Jean-Martin Aussant left the party as well and asked that Pauline Marois step down as party leader. Conversely, PQ member Sylvain Gaudreault said that the exit of these members would have no consequences on the party's future.

Pauline Marois admits that not consulting the party was a mistake but she'll allow party members to abstain from voting on the bill. PQ member Claude Cousineau expresses clearly that when the vote takes place, he'll be away "in the washroom" to avoid supporting his own party's bill.

And when there's a PQ controversy, out come the ghosts of the party to give their opinions! Bernard Landry interjects that this could "turn into a tsunami" and Denis de Belleval suggests that Marois "sold out her convictions for a handful of votes".

Four defections, a divided caucus, the questioning of her leadership and calls for her resignation; the vote on bill 204 was looming... until it wasn't. Jean Charest declared he would delay the vote until the Fall.

So all of that for a postponed bill? Indeed. And with that, she is awarded the Blunder of the Week.

Sing it Mary J.

Hack Pundit Of The Week: Michael Coren

Michael Coren is absolutely disgusted!

He's outraged that the arrest of Ratko Mladic is due to a sense of Western guilt to "show the Islamic world that they care for the safety and plight of the world’s Muslims."

Before I dissect the idiocy of Coren, I must first acknowledge that his column came to my attention via Buckdog and his excellent blog.

So what's at issue here? Ratko Mladic was arrested for war crimes in the Balkans conflict that took place in the 1990s. Allegedly, he was the leader of the paramilitary group responsible for the slaughter of 8,000 men and boys known as the Srebrenica massacre. Coren recognizes the atrocity but raises two points:

1. Why hasn't anything been done about the atrocities committed by Kosovar Albanians?
2. Why is the West ignoring the horrible regimes from other parts of the world such as the autocratic ones in the Middle-East?

Michael Coren's Middle-East Peace Plan

To begin, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has prosecuted multiple members of the KLA.  The conviction of Haradin Bala is clear evidence of that. His trial shed light on the treatment and execution of Serbian prisoners in the Lapušnik prison camp.

One single conviction? Michael Coren would argue that's grossly imbalanced. After the recent Richard Goldstone op-ed in the Washington Post, there have been many voices that claim that impartiality is impossible. The trouble stems from the fact that the Geneva Conventions are self-enforcing. There is no independent organization to monitor compliance with these treaties during and after the fact. The organization that is closest to filling that role is the International Committee of the Red Cross. One of its tasks is guarding the Geneva Conventions principles but it isn't mandated to do fact-finding investigations or publish the results they discover.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigates war crimes after the fact and operates differently than courts in the US or Canada. While prosecutors here look to build the most damning case against the accused, the ICC prosecutors look to build a balanced case to present the judges with all the facts. There are real limitation to what they can prove in such a system and the lack of real-time accurate information on the ground is problematic as well. Despite these hindrances, the ICC is widely regarded as a better court than any domestic war-crime trial court. While a deeply misguided columnist argues that international law is irrelevant, it bears mentioning that these so-called quaint principles were responsible for the Nuremberg Trials. Those revelations are legacies of international law and the ICC.

So knowing its imperfections and limitations, what can be done? The recognition of the ICC is hampered by some UN member states not recognizing its authority. These include: China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, the United States of America and Yemen. Russia hasn't ratified the treaty either. Fine company, wouldn't you say? Without full recognition, limited funding as well as restricted jurisdictions from the world's largest military powers, it isn't difficult to understand how the ICC does not get perfect results. 

Michael Coren's accusation that the US is "for" the prosecution of Ratko Mladic when it doesn't even recognize the authority of the ICC reeks of ignorance.

Does he ask that these world powers give the International Criminal Court the same authority as that given to the other international bodies such as the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization and the International Narcotics Control Board? Of course he doesn't. He just wails loudly about hypocrisy.

He looks to the oppressive regimes in the Middle-East. He points to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and rightly denounces the killing of protesters. But what does Coren recommend the West do if international justice is such a sad joke? Organize a military intervention? Wikileaks revealed the true costs of the US intervention in Iraq: 100,000 civilian deaths. The suggestion that some US officials be tried for war crimes isn't even a consideration in his column on the subject. Hypocrisy, you say?

He uses a very common and idiotic argument: if something isn't perfect, the whole thing should be scrapped. If there are flaws, it's not worth fixing. We shouldn't bother attempting to have international organizations that reward the countries that observe human rights and punish those that violate them, apparently. In Michael Coren's world, Mladic should not go to trial if every other war crime isn't prosecuted as well. Apply this flawed logic to every criminal act and the whole argument breaks down rather quickly.

The charlatan either is too lazy or too stupid to suggest a solution. I can't blame him too much for putting minimal effort in his columns as feeble-mindedness lead to him to say "Either Scripture is eternal or it isn't. As for Jesus not condemning homosexuality, nor did He condemn bestiality and necrophilia." Of course Michael, nothing in the Bible has ever proven itself to be inconsistent with moral behavior. I know this and so do my 700 wives and 300 concubines. Should I bring up Lot's handling of his daughters in Genesis? The Bible possesses many qualities but it's not a guide on sexual ethics.

But he is consistent on Muslims: bomb 'em! With nukes! How can you disagree with him on that? Let's show those brutal, bloodthirsty Muslims our Western righteousness by dropping nuclear bombs indiscriminately on an Islamic country. That will show them our moral superiority.

So it's no surprise that he fails to offer a suggestion such as strengthening the Geneva Conventions or implementing an independent UN monitoring force. These measures wouldn't eliminate war crimes but would lead to more information, research and reporting that could lead to greater repercussions on offending nations and even influence the recalcitrant countries that don't recognize the ICC. I guess gathering information and doing research are foreign concepts to a hack pundit like Michael Coren.

The 10 Best Progressive Posts of the Week

I suggest you listen to the song below as you open the links in other browser windows. Here we go, in no particular order:

-Janfromthebruce has the story of dozens of pages disappearing from intelligence file on Tommy Douglas.
-Alberta Diary reports of how Alberta will build schools and fire teachers.
-Creekside shows how Canada failed to disclose the pollution of the tar sands. Included there is the best photoshopped picture of Stephen Harper of all time.
-The Galloping Beaver had the lowdown on firings of screeners at airports and we how Canada is getting those expensive, ineffective and possibly dangerous Rapiscan machines instead.
-Sister Sage brings some sanity about the "war" between Lib and NDP bloggers over the Clarity Act.
-Montreal Simon on why Saudi Princes and the Cons agree on gas prices.
-Impolitical presents us with news from Down Under about climate scientists facing death threats.
-Buckdog has the cock and bull explanation of an Ontario Progressive Conservative candidate regarding the picture of his penis appearing on his twitter account.
-Dead Wild Roses reclaims the term "socialism" via Noam Chomsky.
-Dawg's Blawg on Vince Li and the media is definitely worth a read.

Also, the posts I put up I'm especially proud of this week are my animated explanation of the Quebec arena deal and my post about how Conservative bloggers will necessarily hate John Baird if they were ideologically consistent... so obviously not a whit.

And because many are jazzed up about Brigette DuPape's act of protest, let me include some proper protest music. Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello perform "Ghost of Tom Joad" live: