Category: Politics

A confederacy of dunces

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Had dinner and a quick drink with CBGB last night at Volo. I needed to unwind after a long week at work (which isn’t done yet…see below) and a quiet, snowy evening with some friends and tasty beer was a proper way to do it.

.:.

Before I sacrifice what’s left of this weekend on the altar of work and the MBA, I thought I’d throw up a couple of thoughts. It may be the last you hear from me for a few days.

  • This just in: Toronto city councilor Rob Ford is a screaming idiot. Not just for this latest nonsense, which shows that his approach to debate is roughly that of a six year old. The man is in the hall of fame for terrible elected officials. It’s embarrassing to live in a city where people continually vote for him.
  • Holy crap…my Canadiens are leading their division! Meanwhile, here in the land of altered reality, people are still talking about the Leafs making the playoffs.
  • I find this map of religious majorities in America very interesting. Anyone know of a Canadian version? [via Richard Florida]
  • I’d used Bloomex a few times for flower delivery and thought they were ok, but they messed up my most recent order — and the customer service followup — something fierce. Luckily Nellie’s an understanding wife who doesn’t demand flowers on/near Valentine’s Day, and so she just laughed it off. I won’t bother going through all the details; I’ll just leave it at this: do not, under any circumstances, use Bloomex. The service they gave me was truly one of the worst customer experiences of my life, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It didn’t cause me harm or anguish or anything…it was just staggeringly, monumentally incompetent. Avoid them at all costs. Warn your friends.

.:.

Guns scare me. Texas has adopted the “castle doctrine,” which means you’re now justified in shooting someone if you feel threatened in your home; there’s no longer much expectation that you take reasonable measures to avoid the threat. You can just shoot it. Some have gone vigilante and extended this to their neighbourhood, like this guy who shot two men in the back because they robbed the house next door, despite the imminent arrival of police and the pleas of a 911 dispatcher.

Militarism scares me. When the Chief of Defence Staff says democratic debate on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan is emboldening the terrorists to attack our troops, it reeks of the same low scare tactics we’ve heard from the United States in recent years. As POGGE put it when this story came out last week, “I think we’ve just been told to shut up and salute.”

American military integration scares me. While a recent deal struck between Canada and the US is intended to let troops from either country cross the border in case of a civil emergency, the potential ramifications of misuse are staggering. There was also no debate on the topic — the deal was signed a week before the story broke — which strikes me as unusual and troubling. This could be a very big help in an actual emergency, or a very ugly tool used for political/military purposes.

[tags]bar volo, rob ford, montreal canadiens, toronto maple leafs, bloomex, castle doctrine, joe horn, rick hillier, american military integration[/tags]

Custer's last stand? That was an ice cream shop down the street.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m so wiped right now that my brain has nearly shut off, making this Washington Times op-ed piece by Susan Jacoby particularly relevant:

“The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.” Ralph Waldo Emerson offered that observation in 1837, but his words echo with painful prescience in today’s very different United States. Americans are in serious intellectual trouble — in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

Jacoby’s new book, on this topic, was also covered in the New York Times recently:

Ms. Jacoby, whose book came out on Tuesday, doesn’t zero in on a particular technology or emotion, but rather on what she feels is a generalized hostility to knowledge. She is well aware that some may tag her a crank. “I expect to get bashed,” said Ms. Jacoby, 62, either as an older person who upbraids the young for plummeting standards and values, or as a secularist whose defense of scientific rationalism is a way to disparage religion.

That Times article also contains a hilarious and horrifying account of what prompted her to write the book:

The author of seven other books, she was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11. Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

Oh dear.

In the Post op-ed Jacoby lists the three influences she feels contribute to the dumbing of her country:

[T]he triumph of video culture over print culture (and by video, I mean every form of digital media, as well as older electronic ones); a disjunction between Americans’ rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism.

I agree (enthusiastically) with her on the last two, but I’m unconvinced of the first. Changing the media and method by which we take in information certainly changes how we learn, but I don’t know if that means we learn less. Learning certainly becomes different. Does switching from print to video mean trading concentration for multi-tasking? Maybe. Does it make you dumber, on average? I doubt it.

I’ve always considered the shift away from books a symptom, not a cause; the dumber you are, the less likely you are to read. Maybe it’s chicken-and-egg, or maybe I’ve read it wrong. In any case, even if it’s as Jacoby says it is, this point is less troubling to me than the anti-rationalism / anti-intellectualism point she makes, largely because it’s (as she mentions in the Post) it’s become a major factor in politics.

And with that, I’m off to read a few hundred news snippets and watch some podcasts.

[tags]susan jacoby, dumbing of america[/tags]

"And the Danny's small brain grew 3 sizes that day."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last week New York governor Eliot Spitzer wrote an editorial in the Washington Post about the predatory lending practices of some large US banks beginning in 2003, and about the Bush administration’s part in allowing them.

Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.

The tool they used for this, Spitzer says, was the obscure Office of the Comptroller of Currency:

In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.

The result, as everyone knows, is economic instability in America and thousands of lost homes. Of course, the blame for this lies in a number of places: the banks offering these predatory loans, the buyers whose eyes were bigger than their wallets, the investors who made sub-prime debt part of their portfolio and those who sold it to them, and on and on. I won’t debate who’s most to blame. What got my attention is the new light in which I see stories like this.

I’m no fan of the Bush administration, nor do I tend to agree with Republican policies*, be they social or fiscal. I tend to be very cynical in my assumptions about their actions (though that probably has less to do with their being Republican than their being politicians in general) so accounts like this would usually suggest the motivating factor was greed. My mind immediately leaps to the corrupting influence of lobbyists in cases like this, and it simply seems natural to me that the large American banks would throw piles of money at government officials, urging them to somehow keep these predatory lending practices legal. While I still consider this a possibility, I no longer leap to it as the most likely scenario.

Perhaps I could blame it on Naomi Klein‘s Shock Doctrine, or perhaps it’s all the Friedman-worship one runs across in the course of an MBA program, but I now consider another motivation on the part of the Bush administration: free market purity. Perhaps the administration believed in the power of unfettered markets so strongly that the notion of state governments’ interference in a company’s right to profit was unacceptable, and they removed the roadblock. It would be a nice bit of irony that, in their quest to remove a government barrier from the path of capitalism, the only tool available to them was more government bureaucracy: the OCC.

I’m not saying either of these theories is what actually happened. I don’t claim to be particularly insightful in matters economic or political. I was merely interested to notice that, because of these new things I have read and learned, my immediate bias has changed. I’m probably no less cynical about politics than before, but I now consider things in another light. That’s something, I guess.

To sum up: reading makes you smarter. Duh.

* Truth be told, I don’t really agree with Democrat policies that often either; it simply strikes me as the lesser of two evils.

[via Brijit]

[tags]eliot spitzer, predatory lending, milton friedman, naomi klein, shock doctrine, education[/tags]

Sure, that's a lot of silk, but…c'mon

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Incredulity, take 1: Shaquille O’Neal’s monthly spending. Granted, it’s probably no worse than any other NBA superstar’s spending, but I haven’t seen theirs broken down like this, so O’Neal’s the topic of discussion.

Among [the expenses]: $156,116 in mortgages on three homes (including his $20 million mansion on Star Island, Miami Beach), plus $31,299 in homeowners insurance; $3,345 in phone bills; $1,610 in lawn and pool maintenance; $12,775 in food; $1,495 in cable TV; $24,300 in gas; $6,730 in dry cleaning; $17,220 in clothing; $2,305 for pets, and $110,505 in vacations.

Believe it or not, the one that really threw me was the gas. I don’t get it. Let’s assume Shaq owns 6 Cadillac Escalades and drives them all every single day. Escalades get 13 mpg, and the highest gas price I can find in the Miami area is $3.39/gallon, which means that Shaq (or his family/whatever) would have to drive each of his six Escalades over 500 miles every single day. I think Shaq’s getting ripped off by either his driver or his accountant.

And don’t even get me started on his $220/day dry cleaner.

.:.

Incredulity, take 2: Paul Wolfowitz is back in the Bush administration, albeit as an advisor.

Paul D. Wolfowitz, who resigned as World Bank chief after serving as second-in-command at the Pentagon, has returned to the Bush administration, albeit in an advisory role.

That sound you just heard was every Iranian sphincter tightening simultaneously.

.:.

In 2007, for the first time ever, condos in downtown Toronto appreciated more than detached homes.

Condominiums in the central core appreciated by 12.2% in 2007 compared to 11.5% for single detached homes. West end condominiums appreciated by 7.3% compared to 6.6% for single detached homes. These stats generally capture activity in the resale market.

I’m actually kind of surprised it took this long, but I’m obviously biased toward condos.

By the way, if I see a sustained 12.2% appreciation, I’ll be pretty pleased with that.

[tags]shaquille o’neal, paul wolfowitz, toronto condos, toronto detached houses[/tags]

I guess a resounding caucus win'll do that for you

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Five days ago I read a post on Richard Florida’s blog, in which he pointed to an expert opinion on the upcoming US presidential elections:

Obama is going to win it all — Iowa, the nomination, the Presidency. And I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that he is a rare combination in American politics, in that he is both the “emotional” choice and the “electable” choice. … Traditionally, we’ve always had to make a tradeoff between the emotional and the electable choices … But with Obama the two sets overlap.

While that struck me as a bold claim, the author that Florida quoted is surely more knowledgeable about American politics than I, so while I couldn’t dismiss the prediction, I was certainly skeptical.

Then today I read another post on RF’s blog. Take a look at the chart in that post. As my friend Evan would say…”Shift Of Power!” Fine, these are only prediction markets (a description Florida takes a poke at, since they’re awfully reactionary) but suddenly what seemed dubious five days ago seems pretty smart now.

[tags]richard florida, barack obama, prediction markets[/tags]

"Hence I am cautiously optimistic."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Interesting stuff found via Brijit, both of which relate to the book I’m reading right now: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

From The Washington Post: A Chance to Defend Themselves (Thomas B. Wilner)

More than 300 prisoners remain at Guantanamo. Most have been there almost six years. We now know that the great majority were not captured on any battlefield. They were not even captured by U.S. forces. Rather, as the National Journal reported last year after an exhaustive study into government records, many were simply “innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants” who were “handed over by reward-seeking Pakistanis and Afghan warlords” in exchange for bounties.

From the New York Times: What’s Your Consumption Factor? (Jared Diamond)

The population especially of the developing world is growing, and some people remain fixated on this. They note that populations of countries like Kenya are growing rapidly, and they say that’s a big problem. Yes, it is a problem for Kenya’s more than 30 million people, but it’s not a burden on the whole world, because Kenyans consume so little. (Their relative per capita rate is 1.) A real problem for the world is that each of us 300 million Americans consumes as much as 32 Kenyans. With 10 times the population, the United States consumes 320 times more resources than Kenya does.

The outlook of the second article is more encouraging than the first, which at least ends with cautious optimism from the author, but its central issue is no less troubling.

[tags]brijit, naomi klein, guantanamo, jared diamond, consumption[/tags]

Seven lean years…

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Thanks, Stephen Harper. Way to improve our image on the national stage.

MUNYONYO, Uganda – Canada appears to have got its way at Commonwealth talks on climate change.

The 53-member organization has produced an agreement stripped of any reference to binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada and Australia had been the lone holdouts against an earlier resolution that would have included such targets – and the Australian government has just been defeated in an election.

.:.

The home improvement continues. Last night we picked up the framed poster that we bought in Paris (well…saw at a restaurant in paris, ordered here at home and had framed down the street) and hung it on the wall. The drill we bought finally came in handy; this sucker’s about 36″x48″ so we needed to sink some screws into the studs. We moved around some other picture, put up some shelves, through out some old pictures…it’s like we’re moving again.

Today we dropped a bunch of stuff at Goodwill, then picked up a counter-height dining table (which Nellie’s being eying for about a year) and a Herman Miller Aeron chair (which I’ve wanted since about 1999). My ass is firmly planted in it as I type this and I think it might just be the best thing I’ve ever bought.

Next up were some new chairs; a place just down the street had some that we liked so we ordered them in for next week. Time to get rid of that old cushy beige one and get some grown-up chairs. We bought some frames for our  diplomas too; after nine years I guess Nellie figures it’s time to hang hers up.

Now Nellie’s off shopping for a dress for my company’s xmas party next weekend, while I unpack the new stuff and wait for the cleaning service to finish up. It’s been a busy 20 hours!

I think we’re going through this mad decoration phase for two reasons: first, we’re entertaining tonight and next Saturday, which gives us some incentive to finally do something; we’d been too busy and complacent after moving in to finish everything off. Second, we went years without buying any new furniture, or painting, or hanging new art, because we were waiting for the condo to be built. I’ve been sitting on the same $40 office chair since my fourth year of university, so I don’t mind dropping the dough for an Aeron to make up for the 11 years of sore-ass.

[tags]canada, commonwealth talks, climate change, stephen harper, condo decorating, herman miller, aeron[/tags]

"Most people I've meet hardly seem like human beings to me anymore."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

A Remembrance Day parade just down Church street this afternoon.

.:.

It was a busy days, internets. We were up early, at Home Depot by 8:15 this morning, and back home painting by 9:00. Well…I wasn’t painting, but Nellie and GB were. I provided logistical support (fetching breakfast, moving furniture, etc.) as I am teh suck when it comes to painting. However, those two were very fast; they did two coats on the living room walls and one and a half coats (don’t ask) in the bedroom. The living room is now a very awesome gray. It looks great, and it feels great to have some color on the walls. Tomorrow we plan to actually put some art on the walls! Like we actually live here!

Tonight we relaxed (Nellie’s actually ready to pass out any minute now), ordered some Thai from the new place across the street (which was very good) and watched one of the movies we PVR’d during TMN‘s free preview weekend: Down In The Valley (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It was…weird. The first half is a standard fish out of water, girl falls for the weird loner, pseudo love story. The second half is a western/chase movie set in the San Fernando valley. Like I said…weird. I wouldn’t recommend it.

We started to watch two other movies from the free preview: Strangers With Candy (which we stopped watching after half an hour…maybe I missed something by never seeing the show but I just didn’t find it that funny) and Aeon Flux (I didn’t even want to record it, but Nellie likes dumb action movies sometimes. I couldn’t even watch it.). We also recorded Volver and Hollywoodland.

.:.

This book review in The New Republic makes my brain swim. It’s about Jack Goldsmith’s book detailing his time as assistant attorney general in the White House’s Office of Legal Counsel. The review covers the book itself, but also gives the reader a synopsis of what it must have been like for Goldsmith and others like him, given the unilateral way in which the Bush administration has operated.

Within a matter of days, Goldsmith learned that he was expected to kowtow to the White House’s legal demands…Battle after battle took place, with Goldsmith saying that the president was not at liberty to do this or that and the White House disagreeing. At one point Addington warned Goldsmith that “if you rule that way, the blood of the hundred thousand people who die in the next attack will be on your hands.” All of this made Goldsmith, an honest and learned man who did not like to see the Constitution traduced by ideology or power, more than despondent, and eventually he left the Department of Justice.

Frightening, since this office is set up to provide counsel to an executive branch struggling with some immense legal issues. It wasn’t long-lived though:

But alas, much of Goldsmith’s handiwork would soon be undone. After his departure, his more pliant successor, Steven Bradbury, gave the administration what it wanted. According to a recent New York Times story that could easily serve as an epilogue to Goldsmith’s book, the administration put Bradbury on a probationary period as acting head of OLC, refusing formally to nominate him until they had seen how he would rule in his acting capacity on a variety of issues.

The full review isn’t that long, and is well worth reading. I assume the book is too, if you want to understand what it feels like for a principled, rational man (who is no left wing lawyer, by the way) to find himself surrounded by ideologues.

[tags]remembrance day, home depot, painting, down in the valley, strangers with candy, aeon flux, jack goldsmith, new republic[/tags]