Tag: News, Politics, Events

Five Percent Is Not That Bad

The BBC reports that five percent increase in fuel costs would ensure 10% green power for the UK:

During the 2003/4 financial year, the amount of electricity generated from inexhaustible natural resources was 2.4%, just over half the target of 4.3%. The government hopes to double the amount of electricity from renewables to 20% of the UK’s needs by 2020, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by between 20 million and 27 million tonnes. The policy’s centrepiece is a commitment to stimulate green energy by making sure those who produce it receive more than the market rate for electricity – known as the Renewables Obligation. In addition, the government is providing capital grants to offshore windfarms, and to power stations that generate electricity from biomass and energy crops.

All sounds reasonable, paying for what you want to avoid what you don’t…unless I suppose you are 17 and love self-help-guru, Miss Take-a-lot 1957 Ayn Rand aka i-me-mine.

Our Man In A Coup

One sometimes correspondent here has found himself in Nepal during the Royalist coup and has sent some dispatches which I have been permitted this afternoon to release to you all which I do anonymously though you may figure it out as I am not much of a secret secret spy. Here is most of his first dispatch:

Am alive and well. No fear. Sitting in the Kathmandu Valley for now…If things get worse, of course, then I’ll start looking for the helicopter out, but all well at present.

Rest assured, I am well. Please don’t spread this e-mail around to anyone of an official or media nature, as I’m using a connection that HM the King has not found out about and therefore not cut off. And I
should hate to get the good people allowing me to send this short missive into trouble.

You will all have heard of the palace coup that took place on Feb. 1st – the King has declared a state of emergency, locked up the politicians, and suspended all constitutional rights which were not already suspended except for habeas corpus, in declaring a national
state of emergency. He has promised to restore multiparty democracy within three years, after having dealt with the Maoist insurgency and restored order in the kingdom. Here is my take on it – I’ve quizzed various people about what they think about it all, and distilled their opinions into a coherent narrative. There are two questions for consideration:

1. Is King Gyanendra sincere?

I wonder – he has always been hostile to liberal democracy – he did not favour his late brother’s decision to grant a constitution. Though he pledged to respect the constitution when he ascended to the throne, he dismissed Parliament in 2002 and has been unable (or unwilling — not sure, given that there is no effective government control of the country outside the KTM Valley) to hold elections for a new one since then. Given the state of the politicians – they are corrupt, and have been unable to form a stable national government or war cabinet in the two and a half years they’ve had since Parliament was dismissed – I tend
to sympathize with the King. He has locked down all the bank accounts, too, in order to take back the money that various ministers have embezzled from the treasury.

2. Assuming that he is sincere in his statements, can he get the job done?

Of this, I’m also not sure. The Royal Nepalese Army, invaluable as they’ve been in keeping civil order in Kathmandu, is armed with WWII-era weaponry. HM will have to re-train his whole army, possibly with American assistance, in order to re-take his country. I fear
that he may be going the way of Tsar Nicholas II, after he took personal command of the army in 1915, in that he will be held personally responsible for any failures in future. Essentially, the King is gambling his throne on his ability to restore order and to restore the state. Whether he can get the job done is unknown.

The mood among the largely well-educated crowd I know is surprisingly upbeat. They value law and order, and think that the present situation could not go on. One effect: the Maoists called for a three-day bandh (gen’l strike) from 2-4 Feb, and nothing happened – people went about their business as usual, instead of being cowed by threats from Maoist goons. So, this is a good thing in their minds. BBC World and CNN International were restored by the evening of the 1st and so I got to watch some of the international coverage (and to see Pres. Bush’s State of the Union address – v. exciting stuff).

Went to a wedding on the 1st and 2nd – and the reception is this evening – for a childhood family friend of mine. (You know me from my year in Halifax – “state of emergency” = “time to go out and party”. Martial law a bit more serious than hurricane or big
snowstorm, but the principle’s the same.) Was very interesting — the royal wedding was a Chetri (sp?) wedding, whereas this one was a Brahmin one. More or less similar, except that the Army “brass” band this time included two drummers, two saxophonists, two clarinet players, a guy with a tuba, and two bagpipers. (The pipes are quite popular in S. Asia — I think there are more here than in the UK, actually. Saw some pipe band stuff on TV for celebrations of Republic Day in India, which I found rather humourous.) Indian news stations are censored here right now, as are the Nepalese ones – there apparently is an army major at every channel monitoring what can go out – for six months, they say. As much as I value order, though, I think that the extraordinary measures the King has taken will backfire on him. One simply cannot
arrest all the politicians, no matter how corrupt they are, and the Constitution, though it should not be a suicide pact, should not simply be suspended at will. I mean, what’s the point of having one, then? (But he didn’t want it, of course.)

…I’ve had the opportunity to see a coup up close and live through it – I’ve always wondered what it would have been like
to be living in a St. Petersburg suburb in October 1917…

Iraqis Vote

Good to see that Iraqis are voting in big numbers. One inevitable – and, frankly, somewhat cliché – election day event occurred:

Further north in the Kurdistan town of Salamanca, CNN’s Nic Robertson reported seeing a 90-year-old woman being taken to a booth in a wheelbarrow. Others came on crutches to cast their ballot.

Something tells me there was a grannie in a wheelbarrow story out of the first elections in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa as well. It would have been interesting to find out why their kids are such deadbeats, as you can’t exactly wheel barrow yourself to a polling booth. Can’s the UN organize a “Taxis for Grannies” bureau. First you would have to register your intention to be wheelbarrowed, then actually produce the barrow in question in order to receive a taxi chit. I would, of course, accept the first commissionership for the bureau along with the apartments in Geneva which would go along with it.

Tinky – Meet Bob

Reports are coming in that Tinky Winky feels a bit relieved, no longer standing alone in the cause of tolerance of sexual orientation of asexual cartoon characters everywhere. God, too. God was originally going to call it the Book of Tinky Winky and Sponge Bob Squarepants rather than the Book of Job. But he figured folks would just not get it in the years BC. We have now caught up with eternity.

Tags and Five Degrees of Trackback

I wrote something over at John of Argghhh!!! (remember: one “r”, two “g”s and three “h”s) and then got trackback to the comment. Here is what I wrote:

These times your country are living in are perhaps too “interesting”, under the logic of that Chinese curse. One thing we up here have up on you in recent history is experience with division. The calls to “unity” remind me of the Quebec separatist era of 1965 to 1995 – which has largely and surprisingly dissipated, perhaps if only for a time.

The ideological divide is obvious to all. Yesterday, during NPR’s call-in after the inauguration one particular caller, phoning-in on the dedicated “Republican line”, was so full of anger and hate at his perception of the anger and hate of the Democrats/liberals it really got me to wondering. Up here, due to our looser and dynamic confederation, the provinces right now have greater autonomy than the feds impose overall control (this shifts decade to decade) compared to your states and feds. We do not now expect national “unity” anymore so much as a working peace. What makes that possible, however, is one province, Ontario with roughly 40% of the entire population which plays national trump card. You lack that fluke of history and also lack the Parliament. So the anger expressed in that 1-2% swing in the national vote becomes the main story as states have too little power to effectively form blocks on issues as might be expressed in a Parliamentary form of democracy. Gridlock.

There must be a better outcome than the triumph of 51% over 49%. It really can’t be enough to say the 49% are now wrong anymore than that other 49% was in 1992 when your Federal goverance was reversed and the then minority was subject to ridicule. I fear, however, if the attitude of that caller is indicative of the common mood. When asked what he would give to foster greater unity he said he would give “my value to the liberals as well as a place at my church” – of course only if they would sub-ordinate themselves. Little dignity and individual autonomy in that. How would a person who saw things in the 49% be the slightest bit attracted to that pew? The core of mutual disrespect is a bad situation.

So what to do? After the very close call of Quebec separatism in 1995, we worked towards a greater asymetrical arrangement where provinces got to express themselves more indiviually. But that donesn’t really appear possible for the US now. If I were a US liberal, I would focus on the local and the state level and forget for this term and likely the next the prospect of running Washington. My goal would be swinging states back and that takes time. Either that or creating enclaves much as the South and Prairie states have in the liberal eras – move to New York, Oregon.

Neither of those outcomes are, however, “unity”. Is the best you can expect is successive slim majorities one way or another?

My trackbacker at Random Fate, a blog I have not read before, then wrote this:

An observation from Canada

Alan, a Canadian, left an long, excellent comment to a post at Argghhh!, where John points to a discussion by Silfray Hraka on selective quotations. At the risk of falling prey to selectively quoting, here is the key point that I liked from the comment at Argghhh!:

There must be a better outcome than the triumph of 51% over 49%. It really can’t be enough to say the 49% are now wrong anymore than that other 49% was in 1992 when your Federal goverance was reversed and the then minority was subject to ridicule. I fear, however, if the attitude of that caller is indicative of the common mood. When asked what he would give to foster greater unity he said he would give “my value to the liberals as well as a place at my church” – of course only if they would sub-ordinate themselves. Little dignity and individual autonomy in that. How would a person who saw things in the 49% be the slightest bit attracted to that pew? The core of mutual disrespect is a bad situation.

In other words, if we refuse to respect those who don’t see the world the same as we do, how can expect things to be any different than they are now, with little discussion but instead opponents shouting past each other, accomplishing nothing but adding noise and anger?

Read the entire comment (it’s the first one after John’s post), but be sure to read the discussion that John pointed to first which is also well worth reading.

The internet is an interesting thing. What I wrote originally was a comment gone somewhat mad – I had originally thought I was going to post one sentence. But I like what I wrote and John doesn’t mind so I posted. What I really like about it all is that it is four degrees of separation between the article written in the Washington Monthly, to the post at Silfray Hraka, to the post at John’s, to my comment at John’s, to the post at Random Fate. Is that four degrees or five?

One thing we do not have in the internet is a means to track these connections other than the sometimes trackback with is linear rather than a net. It would be interesting to be able to have gathered organically the other comments which have spun off the original article in the Washington Monthly. If the original article could have unique ascribed to it by the author, then this would be possible but some sort of tag reader would have to be created that could display the hub article and all the related discussions down separate spokes. Could that be created?

…and am I really “left an long”?

Stop the NHL Madness!!

It was interesting to read the statements of Trevor Linden, head of the NHL Players Association after attempts to discuss the current lock-out collapsed:

With commissioner Gary Bettman out of the way and hardline owners like Boston’s Jeremy Jacobs and Carolina’s Peter Karmanos out of the picture, Linden was hoping to make some headway. He says what he found out was — regardless of who’s in the room — the NHL is as determined as ever to get a salary cap. “Their pursuit of a team-by-team hard cap, NFL-style model, is crystal-clear,” Linden said. Linden believes the players want to find a solution and are willing to examine new ways of getting there. But to his mind the league road map is fixed, always leading to a salary cap. “If we can’t sit in a room and have a mutual discussion and work around each other’s problems to get to an agreement, then what are we looking at?” he asked. “I think players really get their back up when they understand what’s going on here.”

Here are the things Bettman does not understand:

  • Canadians do not like NHL hockey like Americans like NASCAR or the NFL. They like hockey;
  • Whatever happens with the NHL, Canadians – whether resident in Canada or the USA – are your audience. The 1,000,000 Canadians in Los Angeles are the only reason the Kings exist;
  • Canadians are quite content to watch other hockey like AHL, junior and, now, on sports TV Swedish league. We have learned all the funny Finnish and Latvian names and are happy to watch them;
  • Most of the NHL is still populated with Canadians from small towns or with small town ethics. These people for better or worse were not brought up in hockey to aim for millions but for hockey glory. This is not an innane comment but compared to the NBA, NFL or baseball the point of all the years of 5 am practices was not to earn you celebrity and was not the only route available to comfort for the players growing up. It is for the most part about being the best. These are boy scouts gone mad, lunky Dudly Do-rights…that is all. If you screw them, they are as likely to go get another job – because there is nothing your average Canuck likes less than a dumb boss;
  • The best opportunity for fan pressure in support of the league are already past. There is nothing a Canuck respects more than someone who will walk on a pay cheque – think freelance lumberjacks. Not that we are that but we like to think that we are that. Even the guys in their 50s in their suits on the 67th floor. They are prouder of their canoe and the edge of their axe than their retirement savings. That pride is at stake. The players have walked after they found the arenas locked. How many will come back? Wherever they go, Canadians will follow. To watch hockey. The NHL is ultimately irrelevant; and
  • Canadians have never liked Gary Bettman.

My best guess is the puck will next drop on the 2006-2007 NHL season with another Commissioner, 80% of the teams, 60% of the audience, 80% of the wages and 60% of the current owners. And it will be a good thing.

Atlantic Canada is Right II

Today’s Globe and Mail (subscription required for access to the articles so they are not linked) contains two facts that confirms that, especially for the case of Newfoundland, the national perception that Atlantic Canada does not need a new deal is just wrong. These two facts are in addition to the current call for equality in tax sharing on resource revenue placing Newfoundland and Nova Scotia on a equivalent footing with the idle shieks of Alberta who lecture us on fiscal responsibility from the spewing tap of oil revenue which they sit upon solely through fluke of natural history.

The first fact is set out in a chart at page A4 of today’s edition. It shows that in 2002 the Federal Government sends $2.485 billion into Newfoundland while $2.187 is sent from Newfoundland into Federal coffers. The difference of 298 million is less than the transfer from Ottawa to PEI, is half the amount pledged for tsunami relief in another country, is roughly less than the annual budget of the City of Kingston. Hardly a national shame. Further, it is a 2002 figure which, following the preceding decade’s trend, might actually be no longer in deficit at all now into the third fiscal year after the chart’s end.

The second and more important point is made in Rex Murphy’s column in one sentence: “Churchill Falls alone nullifies the equalization ‘debt’.” In terms of gross provincial product, Newfoundland suffers from a legal falsehood, a valuation of the price of the electricity it exports through Quebec due to a sweetheart deal more imposed than negotiated soon after the nation of Newfoundland merged with the nation of Canada in 1949. Generally, throughtout the North American electrical grid, power generated in one place is “wheeled” though the transmission lines of others for a fair price to reach the customers of the generator. Under the Churchill Falls deal, there is a contractual deeming of the value of Newfoundland’s electricity which is vastly below fair market value. Hydro Quebec (I believe it is HQ) then sells the electricity on to New York state, Ontario, etc., effectively as if it generated itself and sells it at market value. It is a windfall to Quebec which Murphy values at over a billion dollars a year. Ottawa saves on that effect as Hydro Quebec is owned by the Porvince of Quebec and its windfall revenues off-set otherwise required transfers fom Canada. It is a loss to Newfoundland that swings it from a have to a have not province.

What is the effect? This chart shows one of them: Newfoundland lost 2.9% of its population from 1991 to 1996 and another 7% of its population from 1996 to 2001. Depopulation of those who are able to go. The capable. Without respect for the value of the resources, those who are able to run the province leave creating a vicious circle of dependency and creativity export and a perception that you have to leave to get ahead. What other province would put up with an economic situation which undermines its ability to continue itself?

Danny Williams is right.

Royalty Dork

I can recall, twenty odd years ago, at a Kings College fancy dress up during undergrad telling the jerk to leave who thought dressing like a Nazi was funny. The bar refused him service, no one suggested there was any excuse and it was done. Why did no one assist Prince Harry with that simple truth?

Second Third in line, eh? A republic is looking better and better.

Two Maps To Consider

From the very bowels of the beast, from the heart of darkness in the main stream media comes a graphical comparative description of information that the suits were too scared to print! OK, it’s just a couple of maps…but they were secreted to this publication. Any comments?

Corporate Deadbeatism

Sensitive readers will recognize my advocacy of respect for reasonable and
lawful taxation as a cornerstone of the new
morality. It is with that purpose I suggest that readers have a look at this
story wherein billions have gone unpaid all in the name of smuggling coffin
nails. Next time you wonder why there is a shortage of money for your favorite
public project, ask a shareholder of JTI-MacDonald, a subsidiary of Japan
Tobacco. While respect for the processes of the court is another cornerstone,
one has to ask if the taxes have gone unpaid, who else could be responsible? Is
this a case of res ipsa locuitur loquitur?