Sunday 30 November 2008

Hello Bart Simpson - Goodbye Charlie Brown

B for just "Being" there?

John Martin has got it right - why should students not feel "entitled to their entitlements". Everyone else does. I happen to be from the generation that once aspired to be as diligent, hard-working, (stupidly) chivalrous and yes even altruistic as Charles SHULTZ's cartoon character, Charlie Brown. Now, popular cartoon culture is defined by "The Simpsons" - a sarcastic, white trash, dysfunctional family headed by Homer, his wife Marge, son Bart, daughter Lisa and baby Maggie created and drawn by Matt Groening.

But the problem of marking is making teachers crazy! Heck, even Barbra KAY has weighted in on the issue.


Adding to the distemper has been a rash of news items that just illustrate how disconnected from reality the current cohort of University students have become.
  • Carleton University Student Council has decided to drop sponsorship of their traditional Annual Cystic Fibrosis "Shinearama" fundraiser since it is not "inclusive" enough. After 20 years of support they determined that because it predominately affects "only white men1" they wanted to find something a little catchier. [Update: 2008NOV29 SC President "maybe impeached"]
  • University of Calgary has severely curtailed a campus Pro-Life group from mounting an extremely grisly photo display of the results of abortion procedures. They may be arrested if they breech the terms which requires the images to turned in so one must enter the display area to view, rather than facing outwards so everyone outside can see them. In the past similarly shocking gruesome photo images/displays have been undertaken by campus "Rape/Violence Against Women" groups as well as "Holocaust Awareness", "Stop Landmines" and various others that advocate "Anti-war" cause. I myself would not want to be subjected to any of those campaigns either. What is the difference with the Pro-Life group?
  • [Update: 2008DEC04 - Lakehead University, Thunder Bay ON. "[Student Union funded] Clubs must make their messages “positive,” cannot be seen to be offensive or disparaging and they are not allowed to impose their views on anyone else." Or so the Lakehead Student Union leaders decreed yesterday. A campus anti-abortion group - who has been seeking "Club" funding for over a year - believes the new rules make it impossible for them to ever spread their message effectively. "[The SU is] working to create a simple happy world, where expressing a single critical thought that may upset anyone is banned, and where [the student union] will be the final arbiter of what is acceptable." The student body should check if Spine transplants are a procedure covered by OHIP in Tbay.

Indoctrinate U anyone?

Footnotes:
1) Not entirely true as it affects many girls/women, although the disease does seem heavily represented among Caucasians in Europe and North America it is also present in North Africa, Asia, Japan, Australia and South America.

Saturday 29 November 2008

What's a guy got to do to get FIRED around here?

In 1934, George Richards as the new owner of the NFL's Detroit Lions1 got the bright idea of playing a game on Thanksgiving Day and another great American tradition was born. But, after their 5th straight whipping the Lions are probably just wishing that the tradition could go the way of the Dodo bird.

Lions Coach Rod MARINELLI, now 1-19 in the last 20 games, is likely thinking of the immortal words of Lions predecessor Darryl ROGERS, who also coached the CFL's Winnipeg Blue Bombers for a forgettable season in 1991.

In a related topic, Danny MACIOCIA, Coach of the CFL's Edmonton Eskimos announced he is stepping down as Coach but will remain as the team's full-time GM. As a Coach he was considered a success and under his leadership the Eskimo's only once did not make it to Western Championships. A list of replacements will be consulted before Xmas.

And finally, I really enjoyed this reprint in yesterdays National Post by Frank FITZPATRICK of the Philadelphia Inquirer about the appointment of Rick TOCCHET to Head Coach of the NHL's Tampa Bay Lighting "It's been a rocky road for Tocchet" Tocchet was charged with illegal gambling while Assistant Coach to Wayne GRETZKY in Phoenix in 2006. The incident was well covered because of his close relationship to the legendary hockey player - and I'm not lion. ;)


Footnotes:
1) Acquired in the depth of the Depression, the new owner acquired the Portsmouth Spartans and moved them from Ohio to Detroit.

Behaviour & Criminality

The term "Criminality" is of course derived from the word "crime" - itself a term rarely critically examined.
Crime consists of the breach of a rule or law for which some governing authority or force may ultimately prescribe a punishment. When society deems informal relationships and sanctions insufficient to create and maintain a desired social order, there may result more formalized systems of social control imposed by the State. Agents of the State thereby compel individuals to conform to behavioural codes and punish those that do not.

A normative definition views crime as deviant behavior that violates prevailing norms – cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave "normally". This approach considers the complex realities surrounding the concept of crime and seeks to understand how changing social, political, psychological, and economic conditions may effect the definitions of crime and the form of law enforcement, legal and penal responses made by society. Such responses can be very contentious.

For example, as cultures change and the political environment shifts, behavior may be criminalised or decriminalised, which will directly affect the statistical crime rates, determine the allocation of resources for the enforcement of such laws, and influence the general public opinion.
Similarly, changes in the way that crime data are collected and/or calculated may affect the public perceptions of the extent of any given "crime problem". All such adjustments to crime statistics, allied with the experience of people in their everyday lives, shape attitudes on the extent to which law should be used to enforce any particular social norm.

There are many ways in which behaviour can be controlled without having to resort to the criminal justice system. But where there is no clear consensus on a given norm, the use of criminal law by the group in power to prohibit the behaviour of another group may be considered an improper limitation of the second group's freedom, and the ordinary members of society may lose some of their respect for the law in general whether the disputed law is actively enforced or not. [November 2008 - Wikipedia.org]
Therefore, "Criminality" refers to the measured condition of crime in a society according to the standards of existing law. When we discuss the level or degree of criminality in a society we are referring to a flexible barometer of criminal activity. Yet many people believe in an inherent condition of criminal behaviour - a "natural level of immoral aberrant behaviour" rooted in the collective DNA of society similar to the biblical story of Cain and his brother Able. Others conflate the two meanings.

Imagine if we made Jaywalking a crime, we should find the "level of criminality" very high as well as our law schools, courts and jails overflowing with new recruits and unfortunates. Tax burdens would rise to finance building jails to incarcerate the flood of new "criminals" and the economy would lose productive, tax generating members. On release, these ex-cons may have lost their old job, maybe sanctioned due to their criminal record or most likely would just be shunned by employers and former business acquaintances. Social dislocations like family poverty and lost parenting would present themselves. Psychological health consequences like loss of self-esteem, depression and suicide would increase. All because of a law.

In this article1 the authors designed six psychology experiments to test the "broken window" theory which - in their opinion - confirmed that people are more likely to break rules when they believe others have done so. This reinforces that the idea that maintaining social order prevents the spread of disorder.

[TBD = In our society, many laws are "civil" in nature and are largely administrative regulations intended to impose a monetary fine or punitive condition (like parking tickets or zoning regulations) and thereby inhibit citizens behaviours in some fashion. Other more serious laws address "criminal" activities/behaviour and are involve server sanctions needing the courts and penal system to determine guilt and punishment.]


Footnotes:
1) "The Spreading of Disorder" Kees Keizer,* Siegwart Lindenberg and Linda Steg, Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Netherlands. Study Shows How Degraded Surroundings Can Degrade by Constance HOLDEN, Science Magazine, 2008 Nov 21. (also see National Post)

Friday 28 November 2008

How totalitarian regimes remain in power

This is a shocking first-hand account by Jean-Baptist KIM, a former "official spokesperson" of North Korea - on how propaganda and naivete are carefully cultivated within that country. Unfortunately, despite believing his disclosures, this fellows susceptibility to be a "useful idiot" must make one pause about the veracity of his interpretation. Nonetheless, it is a cruel indictment of North Korea and many other totalitarian regimes operating with careless impunity and UN complicity around the world. How sad that a noble ideal of "power of the proletariat working classes" is being so abused.

A key trait of such propaganda is controlling communication and silencing/repressing anyone who does not accept or parrot the "party line". The "Official Policy" is determined by government through control of various departments - education, health care, police and justice system. Anyone rash enough to voice an opposing opinion to someone they do not know or trust are harshly disciplined or disabused of the idea. (Does this sound vaguely familiar yet?)

In a similar vein is this account of journalistic collaboration in willfully ignoring the plentiful evidence in plain sight of all during the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 by the Moscow correspondent of the New York Times. Today (Nov 22, 2008) marks the 75th Anniversary of that terrible legacy created by Josef STALIN and his New York Times patsy, Walter DURANTY (see photo). As a committed socialist, DURANTY rarely let the opportunity pass without cheerleading many of Stalin's plans and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize almost entirely on the basis of his reports from Soviet Russia.

In fact DURANTY coined the famous phrase:
"You can't make an omelett with out breaking a few eggs"
He used it to describe the harsh methods employed by Stalin. It was a variant of "the ends justify the means" philosophy of ideologues and tyrants down through history.







Finally, the National Post has also printed brief profiles of famous Soviet hero, Mikhail KALASHNIKOV on the occasion of his 89th birthday. The AK-47 assault rifle bearing his name has sadly become the weapon of choice for many guerrillas around the world because of its reliability and functionality.











Saturday 22 November 2008

CITI never sleeps (and how!)

A fresh panic embroiling Citigroup reached a fever pitch on Friday as the stock dropped below $4 on heavy volume. It is now worth $20bn down from $250 bn a year ago. The unraveling spread across the market renewing concerns about the financial crisis.

A solution seems likely to be brokered before markets open Monday or all hell will break-loose, the only unknown is what it will look like.

Ben Stein1 has written some thoughts on what the future now holds, and I think he has it spot-on (refer to my comments here about the Paulson flip-flop and here about the effects of debt-deflation in this recovery) - indeed "this time its different" may not be overstepping the truth. He believes that at this precarious point, letting the Big3 go bankrupt would send the wrong signal and fear would be unleashed making a recovery even more long and painful. I heard basically the same idea on Friday from a few oil market pundits. The feeling is that without a Big3 bail-out WTI will see $30 before it stops, otherwise $40-50 should be it. There is a small amount of sense in this argument but that maybe all it takes.

Footnotes:
1) For those who don't know, I am a big fan of Ben Stein who despite being a Democrat has called alot of Henry Paulson's antics for what they really are - panic attacks! Ben's father was Herbert Stein PhD - Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1972-74 under Nixon and Ford.

Michael Ignatieff - Volte Face?

Well, they're off! The next Liberal Leadership Race has begun.

Rae of Bob fired his opening salvo last week at the Ontario Caucus meeting where he changed his mind about allowing the media access to the closed door meetings at the last minute. For that party favour, he got the indulgence of the press to sling mud at Micheal Ignatieff, who suggested that the meeting was supposed to be like a meeting of "family" so they could privately discuss party concerns and issues. Seemed reasonable. He probably doesn't broadcast his call's to his wife either.

Yesterday Rae of Bob formally launched himself before Parliament opened - no doubt to dilute the massive press the Conservatives received from the Throne Speech. Basically, he is the only Liberal leadership candidate with the experience of leading a government during a recession (Premier of Ontario in October 1990 to July 1995). Umm. Not so fast Bob. Given that you will have to win seats back in Ontario and Quebec - do you have the undying devotion of the electorate?

Then today there was this "Where I Stand" piece in the National Post - honestly, I can't make head nor tail of it. Perhaps these gobbledy bits are better left as speeches?

But what about Iggy?

What do we know about him? Precious little. Here is Mike Janke's recent exploration of the man. Methinks there are worms beneath this stone best left undisturbed.

I have collected some background from a G&M profile in August 2006 by intrepid reporter Mike Valpy to provide some measure of the man, described as a genius by many Liberals.

There are some jarring vignette's.

Like when his younger brother Andrew recalled how Micheal explained how they could interact when he arrived to join Micheal at Upper Canada College in 1962.
"We went for a walk, and he said, 'I want to make one thing absolutely clear to you. When we're at Aunt Helen's house or Aunt Charity's house [Charity Grant, their mother's sister], you can say whatever you want to me. But if you ever see me on the school grounds, you're not to talk to me. You're not to recognize that I'm your brother. You don't exist as far as I'm concerned. Do I make myself clear?'"
Or when he volunteered to be a neutral observer after racial riots in a maximum security prison in Walpole MA near Harvard where he was taking his M.A in History.
"I'd had a sheltered Canadian middle-class life. I think my whole life I've been fascinated by this sense that the world is divided into zones of safety and zones of danger and violence, and the distance between the two is very small.

"In prisons, the violence is what maintains the social order. You can't think of these zones of safety as being happy, consensual, liberal. They're maintained with this, with violence."

The Walpole ordeal was a nightmarish experience for him, and back in the hallowed halls of Harvard, he was finding life brutal. He had come from provincial University of Toronto where he had been at the top of his class and was now discovering that everyone he met at America's pre-eminent institution of higher learning was smarter than he was.
Ignatieff was not well accepted at Harvard. A friend of the time believes he was betrayed by his aristocratic background. However perhaps it was good fortune as he soon landed a job teaching history at UBC and before school started, he took a break to visit his family's villa in France. En route he stopped in London and encountered Susan Barrowclough:
"a beautiful, vivacious film historian and rising young British intellectual who had studied under Federico Fellini — and sang Verdi off-key. Cupid's arrow whacked them both."
After a year of teaching, the couple found themselves back in London under a Cambridge fellowship. They found the period intellectually challenging. As Valpy recounts:
".... Michael's intelligence and knowledge, his supple political mind, his astonishing facility to write analytical prose and his rigorous discipline as an author. (He wrote two books in this period: Wealth and Virtue, on Scotland during the Enlightenment, and The Needs of Strange rs, on the philosophical conflict between individualism and communitarianism.)"
Yet the Thatcher Revolution of the time seems to have been a seminal moment. One in which Ignatieff realized that he was not a Socialist - he was a liberal.
"Mr. Ignatieff wrote an article for the December, 1984, issue of New Statesman stating that the coal miners were indeed acting against the national interest. But what his article fomented was a furor around its author. He was accused of betraying the cause. People severed friendships with him."
His writing career began - and his family life unraveled. In August 1984 at a rare family gathering where his mother's Alzheimer's condition was revealed, he denounced his father emotional detachment with wounding accusations. Other rifts developed.

"Writing about family," he says in our interview, "it's all about creating the ground under your own feet. It's kind of a process of self-invention, so that you're standing with your feet planted, you know who the hell you are, you know where the hell you came from, you know where the hell you're going."

Through the family stories he says, he gives himself away — whether they are biographical, fictional or some thicket of both fact and fiction. His relationship with George pervades much of what he writes, something he once called "working through stuff with my father."

By the summer of 1989, George Ignatieff - Micheal's father - was dead.
A man feels alone when his father dies, he says, "but I don't feel bereft, although I would give a great deal to spend another second in his company." His father, he says, taught him "ultimate loyalties — that's what fathers can do."
His brother, Andrew believed that when their father died, his own resentment toward Micheal vanished.
"I have reworked our relationship again and again. Michael floats above daily interaction and he thinks that force of will and force of intellect can override psychological and emotional factors. He's had to learn they can't. The thing that saves my relationship with him is that we can meet on an emotional level. His intellectual life is not real to me."
By 1992, their mother too has died - nursed to the end by Andrew. Micheal writes a semi-autobiographical fiction about his mother, her illness and his family. As a footnote a character that closely resembles him has an affair and is ordered out of their home by his wife.
Shortly afterward, a British newspaper gossip columnist trumpeted that Michael Ignatieff — "the patron saint of the New Man" — had left his wife for another woman.
In 1999, Michael Ignatieff married Suzanna Zsohar.
Ms. Zsohar came into Mr. Ignatieff's life at the right moment. On the crest of hard work, discipline and remarkable talent, he had travelled an awesome distance.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the ensuing violent eruptions of ethnic nationalism in the Balkans and elsewhere propelled him on to the global stage as an eloquent and forceful proponent of the obligations of liberal democracies to intervene in failed states to protect their inhabitants.

In television documentaries and books — Blood and Belonging, Guardians of Chaos, The Warrior's Honour, Virtual War, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry, The Trial of Freedom and The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror — he explored the new violence of ethnicity and terror and the failure of traditional multilateral means to contain them.

The Observer gave him a weekly column. He was invited to give lectures at leading U.S. and Canadian universities and offered visiting professorships at the London School of Economics and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Blood and Belonging in 1993 won the $50,000 Lionel Gelber Prize for foreign-policy writing, beating out Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy.

He became a celebrity.
And then, seemingly as quickly as it began the media turned.
"critics called him pompous, tedious, long-winded, a bore — and worse, "a Canadian bore. One paper kept referring to him as "Big Ig."

"And so, two years later, after he and Ms. Zsohar married, Mr. Ignatieff was ready to make another radical change. He junked the fading media career; he junked the British, and he came back across the pond, having resurrected himself as an academic."

"A quarter-century after leaving Harvard convinced that it was overrated, pompous and arrogant, he was back — as director of the Carr Center of Human Rights Policy, an academic think tank tucked beneath the umbrella of Harvard's prestigious Kennedy School of Government."

"He turned the Carr into a dynamic intellectual salon, crackling with scholarly electricity in all directions — looking at human rights in the context of a global responsibility to protect, philosophically re-examining the social contract, investigating the failure of civil society in places such as the Balkans, analyzing how the strong use power on behalf of the weak."

And then in early 2003, he did something that not only shocked his colleagues but brought down on his head the condemnation of the entire U.S. left. In a Sunday magazine essay in The New York Times, he declared his support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

It was 1984 all over again.

"He eloquently defended himself, writing in The Guardian, for example: "Now that combat has commenced, those, like me, who support the war need to be honest enough to address some painful questions. Who wants to live in a world where there are no stable rules for the use of force by states? Not me. Who wants to live in a world ruled by the military power of the strong? Not me. How will we oblige American military hegemony to pay 'decent respect to the opinions of mankind'? I don't know."

"To support the war entails a commitment to rebuild that order on new foundations. To support the war entails other discomforts as well. It means remaining distinct from the company you keep, supporting a swift and decisive victory, while maintaining your distance from the hawks, the triumphalists, the bellowing commentators who mistake machismo for maturity."

Then, in 2005, he again did something shocking — he suddenly resigned from the Carr to return to Canada.

Denis Smith, emeritus professor of political science at University of Western Ontario, puts it another way.

"His writings would be of no public significance, if he had continued his academic and literary career in Canada or abroad," Prof. Smith writes in his new book, Ignatieff's World: A Liberal Leader for the Twenty-first Century, to be published next month.

"But once he became a candidate for the Liberal leadership and a potential prime minister, what he has said about world affairs over two decades becomes relevant to members of the Liberal Party and to the Canadian electorate."

The observer wants to be a player.

On the night of Jan. 23, 2006 Michael Ignatieff — after a slightly dodgy acquisition of the nomination in Etobicoke-Lakeshore (all possible opponents were declared ineligible) — was elected to Parliament.

We will find out more about him soon - just as we did about M. Stephane DION - as I predict he will be the next Liberal Leader. My only question is what shall be the next glorious about-face?

Thursday 20 November 2008

Diamond Mines in NWT


(Ekati Open Pit Mine - courtesy BHP Billiton)






In 1991 Chuck Fipke began the final chapter in his geological odyssey by staking the first claims for a large scale diamond mine in Canada's NWT with Dia Met Minerals Ltd. This sparked the NWT "diamond rush" - the largest mineral staking rush in North American history. Eventually this open pit mine was named EKATI and in 1991 was acquired for development by BHP (now BHP Billiton). This was the first mine to go into production. It is both an open-pit and underground operation. It supplies 3% of world diamonds (6% by value)

(Diavik Mine - courtesy Diavik Mining)













The next diamond mine discovered was "kimberlite pipes1" extending underneath a lake, Lac de Gras - about 300km NE of Yellowknife NWT - and was developed by Diavik Mining in a joint venture with British/Australian mining giant Rio Tinto plc. Production of diamonds began in January 2003 and Lac de Gras now produces 8 million carats annually. BHP Billiton launched a much anticipated takeover for Rio Tinto in January 2007, but was rebuffed. In February 2008 that offer was repeated as hostile and is still "under discussion".










(Underground Mining Equipment at Snap Lake - courtesy De Beers)











By 2005, a third mine was developed by former South African diamond giant De Beers at Snap Lake - an more traditional underground mine. The mine reached commercial production in Spring 2008, and is now ramping up to full production expected by 2008FYE. It will produce 1.4 million carats per year for the next 20 years.

Recently (Nov 8, 2008) Snap Lake announced that they would reduce operations by 10% in order to reduce diamond inventory's at De Beers until supply aligns with lower demand due to the global slowdown.

[Update: 2008 Nov 27, BHP Biliton as anticipated has dropped its bid for Rio Tinto due to collapsing commodity prices, global economic meltdown and onerous EU Competition Panel requirements.
Update: 2008 Nov 24, "
How a Rogue Geologist Discovered a Diamond Trove in the Canadian Arctic" By Carl Hoffman WIRED Magazine Online. An excellent article. It draws alot of material from book about Fipke's discovery of Lac de Gras and sugsequent founding of Dia Met Minerals Ltd's in a JV with BHP.]

Footnotes:
1) Kimberlites is the name given to particular geological material that typifies diamond ore. Kimberly was the region in South Africa where Cecil RHODES and his company De Beers discovered the diamonds that made him immensely rich.

Monday 17 November 2008

Redemption Day

Nov 15 was Redemption Day - the last day of a two week window (Nov 1-14) that traditionally many hedge funds established to allowed clients to redeem funds once per year.

It is anticipated that a tsunami of selling will hit the markets next week (although, assuming that indications have been streaming over that time the funds could have been pre-positioning for liquidation of their portfolio holdings.) It doesn't help that the Auto sector is on the ropes and that Congress will soon retire and not resume until after Obama's Inauguration on January 21, 2009.

Some pundits believe this will mark the bottom to the selling panic. I believe this is close to the mark, but to re-phrase Churchill "It is the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end"1.


Footnotes:
1) Actual quote "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." from speech given after the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt (1942-11-10). My father was actually wounded in the preparations (May 1, 1942) to the First Battle of El Alamein (July 1-27, 1942) after running over a land-mine on his motorbike. He was in the reconnaissance group at the time but he never gave me an idea what he was doing at the time. In fact he avoided speaking about his wartime experience except to sadly note how many of the men in his platoon went on to die while he had lived, which I always attributed to a survivors guilt or perhaps some embarrassment about how a stupid mistake may have led him to drive over a land-mine.

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Paulson Flip-Flops and Markets TANK!

Almost as soon as Treasury Secretary Henry PAULSON opened his mouth this afternoon - the already shaky market started to tank. GE was one of his casualties - despite it being known that GE Financial would tap the Fed's TARP.
Risible, but Paulson now intends to "rescue" consumer finance companies like GM Acceptance (now owned by GE Financial) and VISA from their car loans credit card debts? This is beyond belief.

Markets are holding their breath in anticipation of G20 meeting in Washington DC this weekend Nov 15. Results expected - zilch. For the record, Mr Bean is a respected authority on banking and credit - here were his comments a few week ago when the crisis broke.

Coal + Oil melts Canadian Markets

Canadian stocks were obsessing about the meltdown of Teck Cominco - dn 24% to $C6.63 and change, but oil stocks were also responding to failing price of crude despite last weeks comments by IEA.

Those gloomy projections were dismissed by OPEC at conference in London UK today. OPEC holds alot of sway in the marketplace and many hope they will save us from ourselves and cut back on production. I suspect this may be false hope or wildly misplaced optimism as I am reminded here that the last time OPEC attempted to "calm" the market was April 1998, when cuts of 1.8 million barrels a day were proudly announced. From that point, the crude price continued to fall for another 14 months, slumping by a further 32 per cent and breaking US$10. The "usual suspects" with OPEC (Venezuela, Libya, Iraq and Nigeria) could not be trusted to keep there word and leaks were rampant. Let us hope for more solidarity this time around.



[Update: Thursday Nov 20, 2008 was another brutal meltdown S&P500 752 dn 54 and TSX Comp 7724 dn 765 and WTI US$40.42 dn 5. The VIX was 80.86 up 6.6. For reference, the meltdown last week on Wednesday Nov 12 the S&P500 closed 852 dn 46 and TSX Comp 8922 dn 502 and WTI was $59]

Monday 10 November 2008

The People's Courts - Canadian Style

My Apology to Republicans Ezra LEVANT has described the threats to our freedom of speech that we face from the various Human Rights Tribunals across our country. He makes his case very well in this recent speech to media lawyers - and indeed, I find the similarities chilling.

Walter SCHNEIDER of www.fathersforlife.org has also alluded that the various HRC's remind him of the hated "People's Court" (or "Volksgerichtshof") of Nazi Germany (and he should know, as he was young child during WWII in Germany).

This court was established to deal with treason after a disturbed communist sympathizer - Marinus van der Lubbe - was found guilty of starting the Reichstag fire on 27 Feb 1933. He was attempting to disrupt Hitler from gaining greater political power after assuming the position of Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler used the fire as a pretext to incite fears of a "communist plot" to destabilize Germany and suceeded. In the ensuing election on 05 March 1933 the Nazi's (National Socialist Party) increased their share of the vote to 44% and with support of the National People's Party were able to claim a 52% majority.

The Volksgerichtshof were "special courts" operating outside the constitutional framework of law and had jurisdiction over a broad array of "political offenses". This included crimes like black marketeering, work slowdowns, and defeatism. Such crimes were viewed by the court as Wehrkraftzersetzung ("disintegration of defensive capability") and were punished severely. From 1934 - 1945 over 2,500 political prisoners were executed at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin after being found guilty by the Peoples Court.

Sunday 9 November 2008

NO, We can't

Now that the Coronation is over OBAMA will have to start lowering expectations. So, the new cry will become "No, we can't" and then it will slowly dawn on Americans that the OBAMA rhetoric was merely an illusion. Certainly, he will be able to deflect this charge as the legacy of damage left over from the previous administration, but that won't last more than 4 years. Sooner or later the miracle of OBAMA shall wilt.

Saturday 8 November 2008

Elections over, pretending done

Solberg decided to step down before this last election was called - it's too bad as common-sense humour will be missed.

But also since I have noticed that the Sun chain articles appear not to last as long as others, I decided to repeat the whole transcript.
Good, election season is over. Now we can all quit pretending that presidents and prime ministers can wave a wand and solve everyone's problems.

I know that this is alarming news and I apologize for not mentioning this before the election campaigns were over.

It's just that mentioning it to certain people during the campaign would have been like explaining to children that Santa has perished in a horrible reindeer accident and there won't be gifts this year. But the time has come to tell the truth, and the truth is this: Leading scientists have now proven that 97% of the problems faced by you and me are best addressed by you and me.

I wish to make two points before some people start to protest these new scientific findings.

First, this new study has been confirmed by the experience of all of human history.

Second, I have used the words "scientist" and "scientific" so it's really not appropriate for ordinary non-scientific people to question what science has uncovered.

This new information is especially relevant today as people look at their stock portfolio and ask these two questions: Where can I find the Kraft Dinner, and what is the government going to do to fix this?

The answers to these important questions are that the Kraft Dinner is on aisle five, and that saving money by buying Kraft Dinner is a much better solution to our problems than politicians who use the crisis to try and justify massively expanding the government.

Simple, right?

It's not complicated. The more politicians spend, the less taxpayers get to save. I should know. I am a recovering politician.

There is lots of blame to go around for the current economic turmoil. Naive sub-prime borrowers must bear some guilt, and the U.S. banks and mortgage companies who suckered them in are pond scum. All of that easy credit was promoted, aided and abetted by cheerleading U.S. legislators. Government regulators failed at their one and only job, which is to regulate.

Then all of those sub-prime mortgages, bad credit card debt and shaky car loans were tied together, dabbed with perfume and tarted up with the name Asset Backed Commercial Paper, a hilarious moniker for an investment that is essentially asset free.

Some investment advisers who had never before seen ABCP pushed at it with the toe of their shoe and poked at it with sticks, and upon performing this rigorous analysis determined that it was right for their clients. Some investors seemed to think that a magical new investment had been created that carried little or no risk while offering big returns.

UNICORNS

But as common sense will confirm no risk, big reward schemes are like unicorns, and centaurs and the Kelowna Accord. They are all fun to think about, but no one has ever seen them.

The lesson in all of this is not that we should expect Stephen Harper or Barack Obama to ride to our rescue. The lesson is that we need to be more responsible for our own outcomes. We need to be prudently skeptical about hucksters of all kinds whether they start their pitch with, "Invest in this and you can't lose" or, "If elected I will". The path to success isn't complicated or glamorous. It's called work, save, and know what you're investing in. Good luck with it. See you on aisle five.

That is worth keeping.

Friday 7 November 2008

Stretching: The Truth

As an aging fitness enthusiast, how could this not catch my attention.

Somewhat shocking to find that all those old exercises were based on old-wives tales (at least that is what the article makes one think of). But for me it does have a ring of truth based on personal experience. As I runner for much of life I have always stretched before and after my runs. This rarely helped alleviate the tightness that developed in my legs as I prepared for a race. However that changed when I took up Taekwondo which involved alot of ancient calisthenic routine (well maybe not that ancient as Taekwondo is a modern amalgam of many oriental martial arts disciplines.) This form of cross-training was a wonderful attidote.

This article illustrates many of the exercises that I found useful in taekwondo.

For those who are most prone for ACL injury a major study published earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control, found that knee injuries were cut nearly in half among female collegiate soccer players who followed a warm-up program that included both dynamic warm-up exercises and static stretching (http://www.aclprevent.com/pepprogram.htm).

Thursday 6 November 2008

The New President + "Yes We Can" Speech

Thank god it's over.

I was very impressed with the whole campaign.

McCain did great and he delivered a most moving concession speech, generous in spirit and thought. Palin was an inspired choice and I am thrilled that she is now on the national stage. I am very proud of both of them. President-elect Obama's speech was also inspirational. Martin Luther KING Jr is also smiling down upon us, certainly his words were echoing from the podium in Illinois.

Popular Voting 52% vs 48% - was not bad and far from the route that was predicted but of course the Electoral College count was pretty close to expected.



Saturday 1 November 2008

Anti-Americanism didn’t begin with George Bush and it won’t end with an Obama presidency

I am always amazed by whatever Lawrence Solomon writes. I don't know why - but he manages to cut through the brown stuff. This article is no different for it addresses a deep need that we all have - to be liked. Solomon seems to be saying "don't hate the lion for acting like a lion".

Consider his comments:
I first noticed anti-Americanism abroad as a teen from Canada living in Paris in 1967 — Americans were commonly held in contempt in the 5th Republic of Charles De Gaulle (1958-69), who glorified France by slurring the U.S., and who explicitly sought to undermine U.S. stature in the world. As was popular among French intellectuals, De Gaulle decried America’s “arrogance of power” and its soulless materialism.
This French attitude demonstrates their parochial attitude of an empire they never really had.
With the general exception of the then-Communist countries, the sentiment — at least among the reform-minded people I tended to associate with — was overwhelmingly anti-American. The bitter criticisms of the U.S. often confused me. Anil Agarwal, a prominent environmentalist (now-deceased) from India for whom I had the greatest respect, decried the “Coca Cola-ization” of the Third World (this was circa 1980 — today we would call this “globalization”).

But why blame Coca Cola or America? Anil never did answer in a way I found satisfying, other than expressing a discomfort that the U.S. had become too powerful, that its corporations’ reach had become too extensive, that the U.S. presence had gone too far.
It is called "envy". It is one of the vices and shows the pettiness of so many politicians who can not even dream of the freedoms of America.
The most enduring of the stereotypes that denigrate the U.S. is that of the Ugly American, a best-selling book that came out in 1958, and then became a Marlon Brando movie. This American is loud and tasteless, insensitive to other cultures. A boor, and not one in uniform, the ugly American came to represent the American tourist above all, but also corporate big-wigs and stay-at-home slobs.

Finally, America is loathed because its brand of free-market capitalism remains ascendant, having outperformed European-style socialism and utterly defeated Communism, ideologies that attract many if not most of the world’s intellectuals. More than two centuries since its founding, the U.S. shows no sign of losing either its economic or military supremacy.
Very true - and the closing comment by Solomon is also frustrating.
America will be America after Nov 4. Anti-Americanism is safe.

CAPTCHA's, Gamers, Spam + bots

CAPTCHA's - almost anyone who uses the Internet has run into these kinds of man/machine "interfaces". (Chart shows evidence of Russian cyber attack on Georgian servers in August 2008). The embedded Google Video presentation was from 2004 - and if I am not mistaken sometimes after that Google offered this "image naming game" to any Gmail account holder. (I played it a few times to see what it was about. It was not as full featured as the experimental ESP Game as described by Dr. Luis Von Ahn).


His thesis that we need to improve the "parasitic" relationship1 most of us have with the web - and using "gaming" to motivate volunteers is a very good concept. Think of the number of hours that kids today spend playing games on the net!

The purpose of the talk is to explain "Asymmetric Player Verified" games2 that can harness human interaction to solve unique problems that have eluded computers. That it may support the idea of the movie "The Matrix" that computers realize they have to keep us around because we generate power was a nice ending - considering the talk was sponsored by Google.

The rest of PChucks blog refers to his other musings on bots, spammers and how they may evolve in the future3. Very good article.

Here is link to presentation (Google Video).

[Update: Exposing India's CAPTCHA Solving Economy and this article reveals that spammers are converting 92% of Microsoft, 90% of Google and 58% of Yahoo email account CAPTCHA's.]

Footnotes:
1) Dr. Ahn's fact that it took 9 million man-hours to build the Empire State Building and 20 million man-hours for the Panama Canal were compared to the estimated 9 billion hours Microsoft customers have spent playing Solitare online.


2) Some of the websites mentioned in presentation were: www.captcha.net, www.espgame.org and www.peekaboom.org. In particular I found a free CAPTCHA service very useful for hiding my email adress from spam crawlers. They regularly crawl bogs like this looking for victims and although I knew the risks I had no simple way to foil them - until now. I highly recommend this free service.

3) In particular this blog by a Russian security expert is downright un-nerving - worse is that he refers to Captcha's being broken in 2007!

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