Author: Alan

Disorganized

Last time I wrote about this, it was the day before the London bombings but London Mayor Ken Livingston’s comments again remind me of that question of how will we know if this slow war against shadows is over or even changed?

The terror threat faced by London is “fairly disorganised” and involves small groups of disaffected people, according to the capital’s mayor. Ken Livingstone told the BBC London was not the focus of a “great organised international conspiracy with orders flowing down the chain”. But he said there had been 10 attempted attacks since 11 September 2001, two of which had come since the 7 July bombs.

What is the background level for disorganized dissaffected people that you may never remove from society? Is there a difference between, on the one hand, events of terror by international criminal gangs or whatever Al Quada is now and, on the other, events of horror caused by the disorganized and dissaffected? Is that difference such that the state’s right or obligation to monitor mail and email, listen in or worse stop or will that just continue – less noticed or accepted – as well? Or is the plan to drop the hammer once every five or eleven years without real purpose or practical plan for restoration of anything, like dreamy sophomoric murderers in the unfocused post-colonial open season for disorganized dissaffection.

Day Twenty-Nine: The Dangers of Blogging

I parked this over in the sideblog during this time of the great head cold, but the question still has to be asked: was this guy the country’s dumbest blogger? Paul Wells tells us who the guy is (now was.) Forget for a moment the shameful sense of humour and the shoddy use of such humour for one’s political opponents. I cannot believe that the guy did not understand the essentially public nature of the Internet. Well, at least he has fallen on his keyboard as any good soldier who brings shame to the cause should:

A high-ranking official within the Liberal Party of Canada resigned today after he made disparaging comments on his blog about NDP Leader Jack Layton and his wife, NDP candidate Olivia Chow. Mike Klander, executive vice-president of the federal Liberal party’s Ontario wing, stepped down after photographs of Chow, the NDP candidate for the Toronto riding of Trinity-Spadina, and a chow chow dog were posted on his blog dated Dec. 9 under the heading “Separated at Birth”…

Stephen Taylor, who is coming out as the star blogger of the CPC in this election, noted this important past of what was posted on the blog in question:

Before Mike Klander took down his blog he posted on December 22nd, apologizing for his offensive comments:


It would appear that more people viewed my blog than the small circle of friends it was intented (sic) for. I apologize if anyone was offended by my comments…they were meant to be in jest. Anyway, I have removed my previous posts…

How can you write a public blog when you are a political figure and not think it will be seen by a lot of members of the public – including those who do not like you? This to me is a stunning revelation. The Liberal Party of Canada should be thanking God that they did not choose to rolled out anything about the information superhighway as a core plank in their platform this time around like they have in the past.

Bad taste plus bad political savvy meeting a seriously poor understanding of the way new technology works.

Gotcha

Never a bad moment when the evil are detained. From The Globe:

London’s Metropolitan Police identified the man as Adel Yahya, 23. He was arrested Tuesday at Gatwick Airport as he got off a flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He was charged with conspiring with four other men, all of whom are awaiting trial over the plot to attack three subway trains and a double-decker bus, “to cause by an explosive substance, explosions of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property.”

How Much For The Ferry?

Bad news for whoever has a soft spot for the Rochester to Toronto ferry bought by that US city’s Council just this spring:

The city had set aside an $8-million cushion but had to borrow an extra $2-million from ferry operator Bay Ferries Ltd. to keep afloat. On Tuesday night, the City Council voted 7-2 to borrow $11.5-million more to keep the ferry in business next year. Bought for $32-million at auction, the five-story-tall ferry was re-launched June 30 after running for just 11 weeks in 2004…Fewer than 100 passengers had boarded the 774-seat ferry on sailings last month.

I really hope that that was a 100 person per sailing average but, still, there are big problems with spending or borrowing 21 million within the first year on a 32 million investment. To put that in context, 53 million USD is the equivalent of 13.7% of the entire budget [Ed.: watch it – there’s a .pdf under that there link] for the city for the year 2004-05.

Day Twenty-One: The Great Ennui Sets In

Are other peoples’ elections this dull? The more I think about the two debates the more I am stunned by how ineffective they were. The Globe and Mail reports this morning:

Twenty-one per cent of those who saw the debates or heard about them afterward said Mr. Martin won, compared to 15 per cent who said Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe came out on top, 11 per cent who thought Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was victorious and 6 per cent who favoured NDP Leader Jack Layton. Still, 47 per cent of those surveyed couldn’t decide who was the victor and only 4 per cent said they heard anything that would cause them to change their votes. The debate had no impact,” said Tim Woolstencroft, managing partner of [polling firm] The Strategic Counsel. “It was a big yawn.”

I like the “or heard about them” because what other country holds the main election debate on Friday night the weekend before Christmas? What is not mentioned in the article is how many actually watched the debate. I think it was the 327 in the country people for shopping, invited to parties, having people over or napping.

It is sad because good people whose party is not catching the public imagination have had to resort to blaming the crooked media and dumb Ontario and bovine Canadian acceptance of corruption and everything else that can be dreamed up to avoid the reality that their leader is dull. Dudly deadly dull. And, in any event, what is really happening is every Canadian is remembering how they voted last time because they know if they do it again there will be a useful minority government once more and these guys will have to work together.

Update: interesting to see the old law school pal and one-time roomie Cy is “running the Liberal war-room” according to Paul Wells. I remember thinking back then that if folks like him were to be involved in politics it would be in good hands even though, when I think about it, the party membership he got me to sign up for to help Martin’s run for the leadership around 1990 didn’t get Martin my vote then or since.

Note: to date, 82 referrals to GX40 from the CBC roundtable and 28 to the beer blog. One link from the Instapundit in November was worth 222. With 270064 visits on my server stats for November, I am starting to see the importance of spam for my image of self-worth.