Oil Revenue Produces Irresponsibility

No, dear Globe and Mail reader, this post is not about Alberta. So get lost!

It’s about Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, who said in a speech yesterday that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Iran’s nuclear ambitions are well known and its capabilities slightly less well known.

Dan Drezner asks whether he’s crazy. Maybe, maybe not. More to the point, Drezner links to this article outlining how much Ahmadi-Nejad worries the Iranian business community.

FP reports Iran’s business community has been very critical of the PM’s economic and foreign policies that has resulted in a lot of capital leaving the country:

The Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) has dropped 20 per cent since the election, with the Tehran price index (Tepix) closing on Monday at 10,014, perilously close to the psychological 10,000 mark level. Yesterday the exchange was closed for a public holiday.
…
Iran’s media have been rife with reports of capital flight, especially to the UAE, where thousands of Iranian companies have subsidiaries.

Iran’s business community has limited power, however, because 60% of the government’s income comes from oil. The high price of oil enables the government basically to undermine the conditions necessary for a stable economy (and political society).

Irresponsibility remains a possibility for any society with large oil revenues. But there’s a difference between there being a possibility even commonplace, and it being government policy.

Miers Withdraws

Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the Supreme Court. Peter Schramm rounds up some useful news reports and commentary.

I have no opinion on this matter except that it’s probably the prudent thing for Bush to do.

While I’ve highlight some of her strengths in previous posts, I should clarify that I never tried to defend her against the massive amounts of criticism that people like Frum, Krauthammer, etc. were waging. I simply wanted certain strengths, that may have filled the gaps in the current Court, not to be overlooked. I’m unsure that those strengths have been addressed, but it’s a moot point now.

I hope that clears up some careless misreadings of my previous posts.

Toronto School Board Anti-Christian, -Jewish, and -Islamic

The National Post reports the Toronto School Board has warned teachers against celebrating Hallowe’en because it might be disrespectful of Wiccans.

Of course there’s no mention that its demonic and cultish aspects, however ironic, might offend Christians, Jews, and Muslims (and other faiths). A family on my block refuses to handout Hallowe’en candy because their religion deems Hallowe’en as a celebration of demons.

So the TSB’s decision was made more out of antipathy toward those groups than any concern for the Wiccans. The antipathy is explicit in this bizarre statement:

“Many recently arrived students in our schools share absolutely none of the background cultural knowledge that is necessary to view ‘trick or treating,’ the commercialization of death, the Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious beliefs, as ‘fun,’ ” says the memo

I have no idea what exactly “Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious belief” is supposed to mean, but I think it’s p.c. mumbo-jumbo for intolerant.

Thankfully, the Wiccans themselves seem to be more commonsensical than the TSB:

Nicole Cooper, a first-degree priestess of the Wiccan Church of Canada’s Toronto Temple, agreed. “Frankly, Wiccans are a minority — an extreme religious minority,” she said.

The Halloween celebrations of North American pop culture, she added, are “not actually threatening to my religion anymore than eggs and cute little bunnies are threatening to Easter.”

More on Miers and Litigation Experience

In today’s WSJ, Thomas Griesa, a trial judge in New York, defends Harriet Miers on the basis of her extensive litigation experience, something I’ve noted in the past that has been overlooked by her critics and that the SC needs.

Globe and Mail Campaigning for Martin, Against Alberta

The Globe and Mail put these 2 stories front and center on today’s front page:

“Calgary gets paved with black gold”

“Martin seeks a ‘sign’ from U.S. on softwood”

The 1st story is all about all the conspicuous consumption going on in Calgary, all at the expense, implicitly told, of all you hard working Torontonians. See here for some balance.

The 2nd story reminds the reader that the way to deal with softwood lumber is to threaten Alberta’s oil industry. Albertans are just greedy anyway. And they like Americans to boot.

Alberta-ROC Relations

Alberta-Canada Now re-posts a letter from today’s Calgary Herald that well sums up what’s at stake in the conflict between Alberta and ROC over oil revenues.

I don’t know whether ABN does so intentionally, but ABN illuminates also why this conflict goes to the root of the constitutional problems underlying Alberta indignation:

A Tory government in Ottawa could not be seen to bestow special favours on Alberta, because that would rip our country apart beyond recognition.

No kidding. Who’d recognize a Canada that reversed the flow of special favors? (I prefer the Latinized spelling of “favor”).

Montanans Envious of Alberta?

Albertanicus alerts us to this article on how northern Montanans are contemplating copying the irrigation network that feeds southern Alberta farms.

So no, Montanans are not envious. They are not complaining that Albertans are lucky to live in a place that happens to have miles and miles of irrigation canals; that they’re lucky to be enjoying the extraordinarily high price of agricultural products like canola; and that they should hand their wealth over to those “unlucky” enough not to have those good things.

That would be the envy of a certain other country.

Instead, the Montanans are trying to figure out whether they can copy and adapt the same irrigation techniques for their own purposes.

It’s called creativity and entrepeneurship.

It’s not envy.

That’s not the Montana way.

Peacekeeping: Part of Canada’s Ancient History

The Ottawa Citizen reports that the far majority of Canada’s overseas missions, and its spending, is on NATO- and US-led missions, and not on UN peacekeeping missions, which reverses what was the case a decade ago:

Canada has all but abandoned taking part in United Nations missions and is now on par with Peru and Guatemala in the number of troops it contributes to the world body, a new study to be presented to the Commons finance committee has found.

As of July, Canada had 216 military personnel assigned to UN operations, putting the nation in 36th position as a contributor of soldiers, according to the report by the Polaris Institute of Ottawa. The left-leaning think-tank notes that over the past 10 years, the Liberal government has embarked on a full-scale retreat from UN missions in favour of taking part in ad hoc U.S. or NATO-led operations. Many of the Canadian troops now serving overseas are in Afghanistan taking part in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

“The Canadian public still thinks we’re heavily engaged in peacekeeping operations in support of the United Nations,” said Steve Staples, director of security programs for the institute. “But there’s a real disconnect between where our troops and resources are actually being devoted and what the Canadian public thinks the Canadian Forces are doing.”

In 1992-93, the government spent a little more than $9 of every $10 earmarked for overseas missions on UN operations. Today that spending level for UN missions has dropped to 31 cents out of every $10.

H/t: Nealenews

Victor Davis Hanson: Thucydides and Us

Victor Davis Hanson’s new book on the Peloponnesian War is out. Paul Johnson reviews it and Joe Knippenberg comments on Hanson’s parallels between then and now. Here’s Hanson’s own words on some of these parallels:

Many, for example, recently cited the Iraq war as the modern equivalent of the disastrous Sicilian expedition of 415-413 BC, when Athens lost most of its fleet by assaulting distant Syracuse. But Syracuse was democratic, larger than Athens and, until the invasion, mostly neutral during the Peloponnesian War. A more historically apt analogy to that expedition would be if the United States had attacked democratic India during the midst of the U.S. war against Al Qaeda.

Study of the Peloponnesian War should also remind us that it is not assured that the wealthiest, most sophisticated and democratic state always triumphs over less impressive enemies. After all, Athens, for all its advantages, finally lost its war. And as Thucydides reminds us about the democratic empire’s lapses, arrogance and major blunders, more often the chief culprit was its own infighting and internal discord than the prowess of its many enemies.

Public Education in Alberta & Ontario Compared

Colby Cosh is making the case that Alberta’s public education system surpasses that of Ontario. Join the fun.

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