Author: Alan

Silent Steve

Remember how he was there all the time in the election? Making us feel like he could smile and wave and knew we were out here? I was thinking about how Stevie has gone silent even while his MP roasted a bit in the first week of his mandate and the Globe has been thinking about it as well:

Peter Donolo, an executive vice-president at the Strategic Counsel who was communications director for former prime minister Jean Chrétien when the Liberals came to power in 1993, said the Conservatives have had the worst start of any federal government he can remember. “Mr. Harper had this Day One which I don’t think went according to plan . . . and he has kind of disappeared.” There is not much the Prime Minister could have done to help the Emerson situation by speaking about it publicly, Mr. Donolo said. “It’s not like he can solve it by making an appearance or going on a TV show for an interview.” …

In the six weeks until MPs return to the House of Commons, the Opposition and press gallery members will be looking for ways to occupy their idle hands. And while Mr. Harper works on his Throne Speech, prepares legislation and receives briefings, the news generated in his absence is unlikely to be positive. But Tim Powers, a Conservative strategist, said it would be wrong to create meaningless news events. “You can’t just do things for the sake of doing things. That’s never been Harper,” he said. “I think people would prefer the substance to the sizzle and I think Harper gives them substance.”

Me, I don’t mind. We have had about 3 years of way too much Federal politics and a break is nice. Plus the Olympics are on. But sooner or later I will be looking at my tax forms and figuring out how much I had to send to Ottawa and it would be nice to get a little bit of a show for my money. Aside from the politics, it will be excruciating if the new Prime Minister decides that he does not have a public role and need not lead only decide, though it will be a new and unexpected way for a Tory government to shoot itself in the foot.

But if the silence is to come up with new plans like equalization that does not take into account Alberta’s oil and gas revenue but costs Ontario a billion more instead of, day, ten billion less…well, maybe we ought to get noisy.

#16 – Tough To Get Good Help

[The difficult hidden post, unpublished at the time…]

 

I can’t imagine what Dingwald was thinking when he took Kinsella on staff. Now I realize that David is a bit personality challenged and that young Warren looked a bright light; but really, a political aide does his master no favours writing a senior civil servant a rather peremptory memo in effect telling him how to run his department. Typical of a want to be Leninist.

Gomery, sound chap Gormery. Glad I managed to swing him onto the bench, had this to say,

On November 23, 1995, Mr. Kinsella, the Executive Assistant of Mr. Dingwall, who was then Minister of PWGSC, wrote a surprising memorandum to Messrs. Quail and Stobbe, which to be appreciated must be reproduced in full …

This communication was rightly taken by Mr. Quail to be a highly inappropriate attempt by political staff to interfere in the internal administration of PWGSC, which is entirely within the jurisdiction of the Deputy Minister. The reference to unidentified persons in the PCO and PMO gives the impression that the proposed reorganization of government communications under Mr. Guité was desired by persons at the highest level. To his credit, Mr. Quail resisted the temptation to take offence …
gormery report, captains quarters

David may very well be entitled to his entitlements, as are we all thank you very much, but one has to wonder at the poor man’s despera

Click Fraud?

I have a very hard time swallowing this:…”click fraud” could still prove to be a major challenge for Internet giants such as Google Inc., which make their money through search advertising. The concern that people fraudulently click on sites to drive up a competitor’s ad costs or to boost their own ad revenue was one of the potential pitfalls cited in a published report over the weekend. [Ed.’s subliminal message: PUNT THE CHEESE] Google shares fell 4.6 per cent yesterday after Barron’s warned that its stock could be overvalued because of click fraud, ad pricing pressures and heightened competition.

“The whole idea of fraudulent clicks really relies on the premise that you have a competitor out there that is trying to suck up your ad budget,” said Nick Barbuto, who buys Internet advertising for clients at Cossette Media.So…you set up a system that is measured by an innocuous activity like having surfers of the web clicking through from one page to another and then you penalize someone for doing it too much? What is that about? [Ed. again: no really…PUNT THE CHEESE!] It is not like there are armies of third world clicker throughers out there…is there? Is it just that people realize that by encouraging others to do exactly the activity company X tells its clients they will encourage, driving traffic to their websites.

So what if it is false bubbly economics based on no real production? [Ed.: Foot? Cheese? KICK!] Isn’t that the real issue? That by doing a certain unproductive activity that somehow valuation is ascribed and two cheques are cut, one to BigCo and one to little guy? What do you think? Is it really “fraud”? How can it be fraud when it is indecernable from successful use of the system?

#15 – TV With The Sound Off

Him: Oh good Lord. Look at him, honey! Giggling like a schoolgirl! And so he should. It’s like TV with the sound off when you’ve had too much. Look! It’s like he’s saying:

“Harper appointed who? He crossed! HAH! Garth? Oh, THAT Garth! Garth said what? He did! (hee-hee) Oh. my. God! Then what? Then what?

Oh, you gotta see him, honey, you gotta see! And bring me that gin! This ain’t gonna take long at all. God, I love Layton. For a little commie he’s got some spunk.

NPR Expansion

Rob, who drew me into this gig of his as a volunteer, points out a very interesting phenomena: NPR is expanding:

While many newsrooms are shedding reporters—from the New York Times to the Dallas Morning News—NPR is one of the few places an experienced journalist can hope to get a job.
“I wouldn’t call it a binge,” says Bill Marimow, himself a former denizen of the print world. Fired from the Baltimore Sun in 2004, Marimow went to NPR and this week took over as its news chief. “I would call it significant growth.”

The NPR news operation has added 50 journalists in the past three years, raising the total from 350 to 400. Ten years ago NPR had six foreign bureaus; it just opened its 16th, in Shanghai, putting it in the running with major national news organizations. The New York Times and CNN both have 26, the Los Angeles Times has 22, the Washington Post has 19.

It is no secret that I love NPR and, frankly, I wish Canada had its own version that was more closely connected to the listener and viewer than the CBC is. For all the big yap about how the main stream media is bowing to losers like me who type in their pajamas and pretend (to the embarassment of our spouses) we are Edward R. Murrow reporting from the blitz…that is simply not what is occurring. We are watching re-ordering of news media not collapse.

Nothing new. It is part of the same phenomena that same the rise of talk-radio including political talk radio in the US. When I sketched out my seminal but now dust-coated plan for the left in North America, the first thing I thought of was taking back a solid part of the media. I am doing my part but apparently the $200 million gift to NPR from the estate of a nice person called Joan Kroc is being the NPR news boom. What good folk who want objective thorough news reporting (professional unbiased news being a classic progressive or liberal goal just as much as a cheap quality and broadly available education) need to do is put their money where their mouths are.

Others have proven this works. This is just the same as the US right realized it needed to do something and fund something somewhere back in the 60s, achieved break-through in the 80s and achieving inordinate dominance in the last decade. Just as with that shift, the change that NPR is part of is not a single path. Remember how many foretold the demise of Air America during its first days? Well, it is still there and has 89 stations. What we are watching in the reshuffle is an enrichment of news sources, just in the same way that broadcast shortwave radio provided and then cable TV again provided before the internet. The strengthening of NPR is one compliment to the strenghtening of talk-radio of all sorts along with pajamastan and the next new thing that we have not even heard of yet. More voices please.

De-Yankification

Thinking about the children. It’s all about the children:

The Class A Lowell Spinners of the New York-Penn League say that if youth baseball leagues across New England change the name of a team from the Yankees to the Spinners, Lowell would pay for new uniforms. In a message on the Spinners’ Web site, general manager Tim Bawmann said many children in New England are devastated when they are assigned to be on a team called the Yankees.

Save the children from the trauma of being associated with the Yankees. Give today.

Update: best search string reaching this blog this month so far: “cheater baseball”.

#14 – Pleasures In Small Things

Bunny, I’m afraid took rather a hard line…Ah well, it is only a week.

Instead I enjoyed a bit of the Irish and considered the painful predicament of our new masters. Forget Emerson…nice man Emerson, pleasure to work with. What will make pain for the masters are the little tykes.

Simple problem – we signed agreements with Quebec and some of the less important provinces. Three years, five years. Couple of billion here and there. Point is that the youngster thinks he can, more or less by press release, cancel the deals.

Pleasingly, young Cashew has been on the wire suggesting I come on “Of Counsel” to the firm. Nice to be asked and all. (And we should be keeping an eye on Cashew, very sound chap.) I can’t imagine what fun it would be to have conduct of the Quebec case.

Of course the young masters could pass a bill. With what votes I say. With what votes?

Clever of that Jack fellow to suggest the socialists might be bringing in their own child care program. They would certainly have the votes. And what then gentlemen? Is a government defeated when the House passes a bill? I do wish Eugene was more than a ghost. Bloody socialist but a font of Parliamentary tradition. (Of course he would have pointed out to the Leader that he’d been defeated but I digress.)

#13 – The Pleasures of Power

Well a few days at the lake with Bunny and a weekend in Sante Sauvier with Marie Jose, a few good stiff ones there I can tell you, and our temporary absence from the West Block seems a little easier to endure.

And I must say, gentlemen, that this blog is an excellent idea. Who could have known that my Telidon initiative could have borne the magnificent fruit of the internet and these rather interesting blog things. I hope Ken Thompson has been informed.

In any case, I was, as they apparently say, “surfing” and, along with a somewhat worrisome number of young ladies wearing rather few, if indeed, any clothes – one of whom may have been Marie Jose which I shall have to look into when next I am in Montreal. (A telling mole.) – I ran across a worrying development. I came across some chap’s blog with the rather doubtful name of Occam’s Carbunckle who, without benefit of PCO briefing has noticed the fact that what goes on in Parliament is the tip of the governance iceberg, to coin a phrase.

Regulations, on the other hand, are a different matter. Generally, regulations are the meat and potatoes of law. They give detail and substance to the edicts set forth in the statute. Regulations are made by the Governor-in-Council (Cabinet), subject to the regulation making power granted in the particular statute. They can also be repealed by Cabinet. A regulation cannot contradict a statute, as it is subordinate legislation. There is, however, usually a lot of leeway in what can be enacted (or repealed as the case may be). A statute can really be rendered toothless by the proper neglect in enacting regulations. Let’s take the Firearms Act for instance. the regulation making powers in that statute are as follows:

Oh Dear, if this youngster can figure this out it is only a matter of time before the stubble jumpers will have the Keys to the Kingdom. And what then? What indeed? I suspect we were just lucky that no one told Joe and, of course, it was Brian who introduced me to Marie Jose and he really has always been one of us. But that Toews (and what sort of name is Toews anyway) fellow seems all set to use our regulations for their ends. Time for several fingers of scotch and, perhaps, Bunny can be persuaded to be Governess a bit early this month.