Blogs v. The Legacy Media

Occasionally the question comes up as to why I get my news from blogs instead of conventional big media news sources. Blogs are written by amateurs, they’re full of unsourced opinions, they’re poorly edited. Journalists writing for the legacy media are trained professionals following relatively strict codes of conduct, with layers of editing and access to vast amounts of well-sourced information. All true.

For an up-to-the-minute example of why blogs are superior to, for example, big newspapers, look no further than one of the least reputable of my favourite American blogs, Ace of Spades HQ: ClimateGate gets real legs – London Times reports on CRU’s thrown away raw data:

Their data ditching is actually old, high profile coverage of it and its implications, not so old.

Exactly my point. I read about the data loss weeks before the CRU email scandal broke. People relying on the London Times are only reading about this today.

Rethinking Terrorism

This post isn’t as timely as I’d have liked, but it’s taken a while to bang these ideas into shape.

Let me begin by getting right to the point: we aren’t fighting a war against terror. We’re fighting a war against jihadism.

This may seem like nitpicking, or even wilful obfuscation, as terrorism and jihadism are often used interchangeably. Allow me to explain why I think it‘s an important distinction worthy of further consideration, since I also believe that this distinction is already being made in a way that suits our enemy more than it helps our cause.

A couple of weeks ago a Fox News poll came out showing that some 61% of young people in the US didn’t see the Fort Hood massacre as a terrorist attack per se, but as a killing spree. Conservative bloggers responded with anger and disbelief. To them it was obvious that Hassan was a terrorist. That the American public was getting it wrong was the fault of liberal media bias and the Obama administration’s overall failure of leadership regarding defence and security. [Read more]

Trust, But Verify

The key lesson to take away from the CRU email scandal is: trust, but verify. It’s an old expression, but it’s the key to why the “deniers” are looking prescient while the true believers look like dupes. Expert opinions are valuable for assessing many aspects of the world we live in. However, when the methods and data sources used to bolster these opinions are shrouded in secrecy this should be taken as a warning sign that something is amiss.

Peer review cuts both ways: it is a valuable tool for weeding out inappropriately formed opinions, but in the wrong hands it can just as easily be used to keep a poorly constructed “concensus” insulated from the kind of rigorous intellectual debate that a subject of this importance deserves.

With any topic of public debate, we should never trust without question opinions formed in a black box, no matter how much we otherwise trust and admire the source.

(Thanks to Instapundit, Ace of Spades, Mark Steyn and The Volokh Conspiracy)

Big Government vrs. The Virtue of Governing Oneself

I’m all for gun and property rights. But I can’t understand people that always want to get tough on crime, particularly with stiffer prison sentencing. Can’t they be more imaginative? Why don’t they buy a gun, then get involved in some group or another to elevate the character of young people or the otherwise dispossessed.

The political culture is such that we are subjects of a massive state apparatus and comforted with infinite means to entertain ourselves, but why such little appreciation for the responsibilities that come with citizenship? with looking out for your own self-interest, especially in the community where you live? taking pride in your own capacity for self-governance?

Such prison policy is bearing fruit south of the border and it is rotten! … Reform is needed, and as the New York Times reports, it’s becoming a bipartisan issue.

I watched Gran Torino for the first time last night. Great movie!

There is a scene in Gran Torino where Clint Eastwood’s character, Walt, is asked why he didn’t call the police instead of confronting a gang outside his house. Walt’s response, “Well you know, I prayed for them to come but nobody answered. … when things happen quickly like that, you have to react.”

When faced with any individual or social “problem,” be it crime, the need for some agent of welfare, or even some public works project or another, we need to consider how civil society engenders a much larger definition than Big Government prefers to accommodate. Big Government is not the natural result of civil society, rather, Big Government is what Max Weber called an “iron cage,” and we require a responsible citizenry to moderate its role in civil society.

Consider what John von Heyking writes in his insightful review of “It’s the Regime, Stupid! A Report From the Cowboy West on Why Stephen Harper Matters:”

And so Canadians have come to view their sovereign as the agent of “gift giving,” … This decadent regime has been rendered possible by a decadent Christian culture that has forgotten the distinction between compassion, which benefits bureaucrats (because the purpose of compassion is to feel good about oneself), and caritas, for which the language of costs and benefits are irrelevant (because the purpose of caritas is love for another). Subjects of the modern regime need to balance their interest-calculation with some pride, which Cooper describes as a “something that you hold on to without qualification as to whether it is in your interest to do so – otherwise there would be no ‘you’ to have an interest.” …

In other words, too many take Big Government to be the default solution to whatever ails them. And yet, there is no virtue, no individual dignity to be gained, in not taking responsibility for your own life.

Will Climategate Melt Away The Myths of Scientific Nobility?

Well, it looks like it didn’t take long for the doubts to begin. Hitting back at an absolutely damning development from last weekend, the folks at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which incidentally acts more like a political than a scientific body, are now claiming the OJ Simpson defence — the evidence is tampered!

Ever since this story broke earlier in the week, I keep getting brought back to this clip of Dr. David Berlinski, professor of mathematics (formerly of the University of Paris). The problem with the dogmatic climate clan is that they did have a clue, and didn’t tell us about it.

There’s a larger issue at stake here though, given the amount of credibility we invest in the research and academic professions. It’s not that good work doesn’t get done, it almost always does, and by very talented people too. However, like any other profession involving people, there is always the temptation to fudge the numbers. A CFO would be criminally negligent if he didn’t institute internal controls over money handling; likewise, an engineer who doesn’t do her due diligence on a project has to answer to the law. So, isn’t it time that there was some self-imposed regulation among the scientific community? After all, some of the research we’re talking about will mean the difference of not only dollars, but lives. What guarantees do we have that the piles of scientific goop fed to us is legitimate and free of unreasonable personal bias?

Again, other professions have taken great strides to negate the human effect so why not the science profession? Given the amount of tax dollars we give to the folks in question, is it too much to ask for a little more than the scientific method as an ethical guide for the research?

Suzuki Bonus: David Suzuki’s thoughts from an earlier time on how he sees humans (the good part starts 20 seconds in)!

Liberals Look to 2006 Strategy After 2008 Disaster?

The Liberals, and their cheerleaders in the Toronto media, simply don’t get it! From a strictly strategic point of view, I’ve seen this time and time before in the business world — a former market leader, trounced by a new and innovative successor, tries something new for the sake of new and falls flat on its face before coming to the conclusion that the bland, old ways of doing things can work again if only the effort is really sincere.

Enter Lawrence Martin, whose political insights are so honed, that he’s joining Frank McKenna in giving the Tories the upcoming Red playbook months before the next election! Misjudging 2008′s election results as too ideologically fought, the Liberal Party of Canada has, following McKenna’s lead, abandoned the principle notion for the good ol’ strategy of fear-mongering. “Just bring out Harper’s old quotes!” they say, as if that is some magical panacea that will bring the Liberals back above 100 seats in the Commons.

Just as Yahoo!, Eaton’s, Sony and MySpace all found out though, times change! It’s one thing to, for example, refer to a 1997 quote from the Prime Minister about our need to get rid of the Canada Health Act, but another to follow the argument though on why this means the incumbent entering his fourth year in office needs to be turfed. Garble up the “second tier” quote as they will, the Liberals will also have a hard time explaining how their leader was more recently condoning the use of torture.  This isn’t 2000 anymore…for that matter, it isn’t even 2006 anymore where the Liberals could still rely on a certain level of incumbent comfort among the electorate.

In this new era, it is the Tories who can, and have been, making the arguments against the unknown and untested. Unlike the Liberals though, they haven’t been tied down with a scandal as big as the Chretien-era AdScam issue, and still have some degree of principle over the Liberal Party. The best that a Liberal scorched earth campaign could do is, perhaps, spook a few voters in Toronto, for all the good it will do. The rest of the country, nay world is concentrated right now on the bread and butter issues. Chretien survived the Somalia Inquiry without a scratch; Harper will get by these torture issues just fine. As for what will win the election — taxes, jobs, stability — what have the Liberals said, other than a leader’s musings last April in Cambridge (Ontario, not Mass.; just needed to make that clear!) about the need to raise taxes. That’ll be a winner…for a 2nd tier party competing with the NDP right now!

Demand more subsidies for the North!

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy has just put out a report called “True North: Adapting Infrastructure to Climate Change in Northern Canada” jumps on the sexy environmental alarmism bandwagon to conceal what amounts to nothing more than a shill for more subsidies.

Eminent Domain, Property Rights and the Results of Government Theft

The other day, I wrote about the most recent development in what can best be described as the Kelo Affair – about how the government decided to take people’s homes not because of blight or because the buildings were fit to be condemned, but because politicians decided they knew it’d be better to transfer the land to someone else.

Consequently, where once stood a neighbourhood now stands a vacant lot.

Today, in New York, the courts have struck another blow against property rights and liberty.  The use of eminent domain to facilitate the Atlantic Yards development has been upheld by New York’s Court of Appeals.  This means that, thanks to the appropriation of private property, the New Jersey Nets will have a new arena.

After I wrote about Kelo, Richard Albert was kind enough to send along another viewpoint on the situation.  Thomas Merrill, a law professor at Yale, writes, in part:

Those who support urban redevelopment efforts will say that the very controversy generated by the Kelo decision and the artificially hyped political backlash are what killed off the New London project. The New London project was designed to capitalize on the Pfizer project, not to induce it. And it included a number of traditional public uses, like a marina, a walkway, a proposed Coast Guard Museum and public parking for the museum and the adjacent Fort Trumbull park.

Now, the entire project appears to have collapsed, leaving an eyesore. The economic downturn has much to do with this. But the expense and delay of litigation over the use of eminent domain and the negative publicity associated with the political backlash were surely significant contributing factors, as they surely were in Pfizer’s decision to pull out. So the legacy of the anti-eminent domain crusade, at least for New London, is a vacant Pfizer building and a desolate plot of ground next door.

I do not believe that this sad episode means we should overturn Kelo and ask federal judges to arbitrate questions about when eminent domain should be used. The solution is not to nationalize eminent domain, but to localize it. If a proposed project is one that will have primarily local benefits — like economic development — then local citizens should decide whether to pursue it, not some state redevelopment agency or the governor’s office.

Richard was wise to send this to me, as he knows that empowering local governments is a cause close to my heart, and, thus, I agree that eminent domain is generally best employed by local government.  However, Prof. Merrill’s argument doesn’t quite sway me.  Any backlash, however dismissively described, must be considered when invoking eminent domain.  Whatever the intentions of a government, we can’t assume that they will be realized.

If you are wondering why I am so fixated on issues involving eminent domain, it is because they hit very close to home, literally.  I currently live blocks away from Lebreton Flats – some fields in the heart of Ottawa that have been home to little more than a transitway, some gravel parking lots and snow piles for the last forty years.

Recently, development has been started.  A few years ago, Canada’s War Museum was relocated to a new building in Lebreton Flats.  More recently, a condo development has opened.  Plans are in place, and these should just be the first steps in creating a new community adjacent to downtown.  Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea that this would not be the first community at Lebreton Flats.

In the mid 19th Century, a community grew in Lebreton Flats.  It was a mixed residential area that supported Ottawa’s lumber industry.   It was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1900, but was rebuilt and would survive for another six decades.  It would survive until local and federal governments decided it should be razed.

It survived until governments decided they had a better use for it than the residents.

It survived until politicians decided they did not want a blue collar neighbourhood within site of Parliament Hill.

Development has finally started again, half a century after the previous residents were evicted, but the development is not without controversy.  The government has meddled in the sale of Lebreton Flats and has gamed the system to benefit a favoured corporation.  By the time the corruption was caught, no other entity was interested in developing the land.  Rather than allowing the public to shape their own city, politicians have forced a sub-optimal development plan on Ottawa.

Everyday, I walk by Lebreton Flats.  I walk along it while I go to work.  I walk through it on my way to church.  I see it every time I go downtown.  I see it every time I drive anywhere.  The life of Lebreton Flats is gone.  The few blocks that survived are now considered a heritage district.  This distinct and thriving neighbourhood, born before our nation, is a ghost.  This part of my beloved home town has been stolen from me, and everyday I am reminded of the theft.

In the wake of the most recent news of the Kelo Affair, Alex Tabbarok wrote, “Those who would sacrifice property rights to development end up with neither.”  I submit that Mr. Tabbarok is being optimistic if he thinks that is all that we would lose.

We Demand a Public Inquiry into Torture

ThePolitic‘s favourite Ordinary Gentleman, Scott H. Payne, has decided he’s had enough of just writing about the Afghan torture/Richard Colvin affair.  He doesn’t like what’s going on, and he wants to see a public inquiry into the matter.  Accordingly, he has started an online petition:

Whereas, on November 18 former senior Canadian diplomat to Afghanistan Richard Colvin testified in front a House of Commons committee stating that most if not all Afghans handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian forces in Afghanistan were subject to torture; and

Whereas, Colvin wrote as many as 17 memos via the appropriate channels attempting to alert the appropriate authorities reaching as far up as one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s senior security advisers to the likelihood of Canada’s complicity in enabling the torture of Afghans via the appropriate channels of communications that have been heretofore ignored; and

Whereas, despite a long and distinguished career of service to his country, the Harper government has responded to Colvin’s testimony in a dismissive and cavalier fashion and has explicitly questioned Colvin’s credibility instead of addressing his concerns; and

Whereas, the government of Canada has not only failed to adequately address Colvin’s testimony, but has also acted in a questionable and potentially obstructionist manner towards a Military Complaints Commission whose purpose was to address those concerns; and

Whereas, the Canadian government has a history of failing to notify the Red Cross of any prisoner transfers in Afghanistan in a timely fashion; and

Whereas, the use of torture techniques by Afghan authorities in places like Kandahar is understood to be standard operating procedure; and

Whereas, the use of torture techniques on prisoners is morally abhorrent and anathema to the values of Canadian society and government;

Therefore, we the undersigned citizens of Canada demand that the government of Canada submit to and coordinate a full public inquiry into the serious allegations and concerns that have recently come to light around Canada’s involvement in delivering Afghan prisoners into conditions of torture by Afghan authorities.

We’ve had our own little debate about the matter, so I thought I’d let all our readers know in case they wanted to sign the petition.  Normally, I don’t bother with online petitions, but, considering that I decided to stir things up the other day, I thought I would, pace Scott, put my money where my mouth is.  So I signed his petition.

Apple Warranties Compromised By Tobacco?

(Full disclosure: I own an iPhone, which is both amazing and meh. If you own one you know what I mean.)

If you own any Apple products and subject them to tobacco smoke on a regular basis, you may be interested to learn that according to this site Steve Jobs himself considers this to be a bona fide breach of your warranty, despite no language indicating this potential to void in the warranty itself. You might want to try a little Fabreeze before taking your product in for service.

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