Conrad Y1P (or Year 1 in Prison)

Peter WORTHINGTON reports on Conrad BLACK's 1st Anniversary at Coleman Minimum Security Prison in Florida. Most disturbing - and which WORTHINGTON makes evident - is the the dehumanizing aspect for all involved, inmates, guards and especially visitors. The treatment WORTHINGTON receives is sure to make anyone think twice about making such a trip. But the indignity's are shared as after the visit Conrad BLACK receives a body cavity search before being allowed back into his quarters.

Among the intriguing observations by WORTHINGTON it that the U.S prison population has exploded on the past 30 years - 300,000 in 1972 to over 2million in 2007. As a poster to the article noted, WORTHINGTON's new found sympathy is surprising. Given that he sowed his journalistic reputation in the early days of the Toronto Sun and was known for years as a "hard-ass" against crime this seems a tad remorseful. Has he grown a conscience in the past 5 years watching one of his best buddies humiliated by the U.S Justice system.

What is going on here?

I suspect that WORTHINGTON - who started as a hard-nosed crime reporter - is starting to realize that some of those stories he brought to front page in exchange for better access to Crown prosecutors and Toronto Police Services are beginning to haunt him. Disgraced Ontario pathologist Charles SMITH, the Karla HOMOLKA fiasco, as well as a growing number of high profile, overturned homicide convictions. A very sage MRA told me not long ago that Men's Chivalry has done as much damage to Men's Rights as Feminism. Shake your world, Pete.

Utah's 4 day work week catches fire

Apparently, in September 2008 Utah adopted an experimental 4 day 10hr work week Monday to Thursday in a bid to save money when faced with increased budget shortfalls. It is now being looked at by other states such as Washington, Hawaii and New Mexico. Not all government services are affected. Obviously State Colleges, and Emergency services have not closed. Only 900 of 6,000 buildings have been completely effected but direct savings are estimated to be $3 million (per month?). The indirect advantages are reduced heating/lease costs, as well as lower employee travel expenses. The Department of Motor Vehicles has actually seen an increase in activity due to more favourable hours.

There will be blood

Interview by Heather Scoffield in G&M with Harvard economic historian Niall Ferguson who predicts prolonged financial hardship, even civil war, before the ‘Great Recession' ends. There are some great quotes but I have summarized some of his comments by theme.

• Economic Recovery - Policy makers and forecasters who see a recovery next year are probably lying to boost public confidence, he said. And the crisis will eventually provoke political conflict, albeit not on the scale of a world war, but violent all the same.

• Canadian Economy - Canada is [considered] a winner because its banks are less leveraged, bank regulation here has been tighter, because its housing market hasn't been in a bubble quite the same way. Because this is a very unfair crisis.

• Globalization - [But as] The epicentre [of this crisis] is the United States, ... America's trading partners will get hit harder than the U.S. This is a crisis of globalization. Therefore, the more an economy depends on the global system, the harder it hurts. ... virtue is its own reward. You don't get any reward beyond the self-satisfaction of having been virtuous.

• US Currency - It's almost paradoxical that an American crisis ... reinforces the status of the United States as a safe haven. In a global crisis, investors want to increase their exposure to the U.S. Hence, the dollar rally. Hence 10-year Treasuries down below 3 per cent yields.

• China - Chimerica – the fusion of China and America – is one of my big ideas. Both sides stand to lose from a breakdown of Chimerica, which is why both sides are affirming a commitment to it. The Chinese believe in Chimerica maybe even more than Americans do. They have nowhere else to go. They want to keep, as far as possible, the U.S. importing Chinese goods. They want to keep currencies stable. Chimerica is intact. But I stress ‘officially' because there's considerable public disquiet. This [implosion of trade] poses the biggest challenge that the Chinese administration has faced since they embarked on reforms 30 years ago.

• Global Conflicts - A crisis of this magnitude is bound to increase political as well as economic [conflict]. It is bound to destabilize some countries. It will cause civil wars to break out, that have been dormant. It will topple governments that were moderate and bring in governments that are extreme.
  

• Russia - If Russia is looking for trouble the way Mr. Putin seems to be, I still have some doubt as to whether it can really make this trouble, because of the weakness of the Russian economy. It's hard to imagine Russia invading Ukraine without weakening its economic plight. They're desperately trying to prevent the ruble from falling off a cliff. They're spending all their reserves to prop it up. It's hardly going to help if they do another Georgia.”

• IMF - I think the IMF has been consistently wrong in its projections year after year. Most projections are wrong, because they're based on models that don't really correspond to the real world. If anything good comes of crisis, I hope it will be to discredit these ridiculous models that people rely on, and a return to something more like a historical understanding about the way the world works.”

• The Great Repression - [This crisis began in] August, 2007. when the various hedge funds started to hemorrhage. The stock markets carried on until October. consumer behaviour in the U.S. did not change until the third quarter of 2008. So there was a massive denial problem. [in October 2008] Bush calls for panic. I love it because it completely called the situation. There he was calling for panic ... to make people come out of denial. It took ages, ages, for people to realize this thing had fallen apart. Now, people have to try to unscare them before this thing becomes a self-perpetuating downward spiral. I think that's why you have to say ‘growth will return in 2010' with your fingers crossed behind your back.”
  

• Housing - Property ownership is something that our societies, particularly English-speaking societies, seem to be drawn towards. The notion that the majority of people should own their own homes dated from the 30s. It didn't really become a reality until the 50s. [The U.S] tax code privileges this asset class to take out mortgages and invest in property. I think that's a mistake. Canada doesn't have mortgage interest relief, and the home ownership rate is the same as the U.S. [So] we've sort of pushed the home ownership rate up to what seems to be its maximum, and beyond. It will clearly come down. The lesson of the subprime crisis is that you shouldn't give mortgages to people who can't afford them. Duh …

• Markets - There are some fantastic investment opportunities that pretty soon are going to start attracting buyers. The returns on the super-safe, highly-liquid U.S. Treasury portfolios are next to nothing. The potential returns from buying distressed assets or from buying companies that can't roll over their debt, are double digit. And it doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that the buyers will be sovereign wealth funds or other entities in surplus countries. The world divides in two, the debtors and the creditors. The debtors … (U.S., Europe) ... are going to have to sell of their assets. Call it the global foreclosure. They're going to be selling their assets cheaply to those who have the surpluses. “It's revenge of the sovereign wealth funds. They got burned. And this time, no more Mr. Nice Guy.”

• Bonds - $2-trillion worth of debt is going to hit the market this year, maybe more. Supply is exploding just when demand is contracting. You don't need to be a Nobel laureate to see that that has to impact on the price. The difference is there is this thing called the Fed that can step in and start buying the stuff if the foreign demand fades.

• Bubbles - In the Ascent of Money, I argue that you can't really have a bubble if you don't have a monetary authority that has been excessively generous. From John Law in 1719 to Alan Greenspan in the late 90s, there's always a banker, there's always a central banker making credit too readily available.

• Inflation - When the central bankers got together at Jackson Hole [in the 1990's], the view that emerged ... was, we shouldn't really pay attention to asset prices in the setting of monetary policy. I thought it was a mistake at the time because it seemed to me crazy to ignore asset prices. Why differentiate? What's the difference between pricing a loaf and pricing a house? Why do we care about one and not the other? [So] I think there was a flaw in the theory there, that essentially you could call the Jackson Hole consensus.
  

• Europe - European banks are far more leveraged than American banks. I don't see Europe as offering up any particularly good model in any respect. In fact, Europe's prospects could get a whole lot worse this year, [as] it could be very, very hard indeed to keep the Euro zone together. There will be howling anguish, all kinds of pain, conflict between Germans and the others. It's going to get very uncomfortable indeed. Spain [may be an exception]

• U.S Protectionism - No administration with Larry Summers in the White House is going to be a protectionist administration. Here's a man whose commitment to free trade and free capital movements nobody doubts.

• Positives? - Yes 1) Chimerica is holding up. The Chinese don't seem to want to get divorced from their American spouse and 2) this isn't leading to World War Three or Four, depending on how many world wars you think there have been [but] there will be instability. But it's hard to see a simple and quick macroeconomic happy ending.

• Canada is not going to suffer as badly as many other economies around the world. The biggest fault lines in the global system are in Asia ... and maybe in Eastern Europe. That's where things are going to be really unpredictable.

• There was a time when if you said the United States was going to suffer a lost decade like Japan did in the 1990s, everybody would have said you were a mad pessimist. That begins to look like quite a good scenario. And I think it's a realistic scenario.

• One of the facts is if you subtract mortgage equity withdrawal from the Bush years, the real underlying rate of growth of the U.S. economy was 1 per cent. So much of the consumption has been fuelled by mortgage equity withdrawal. So that seems like a reasonable growth rate for 10 years. … We just don't have an improvement of standard of living of the sort we're grown used to. And indeed if you have a more equitable redistribution through the tax system. If we simply go back to where we were, in 2005, that's surely not the worst thing that could happen to us.

Warren KINSELLA Doubles-Down

In a suicidal effort to save his Liberal hack reputation, Warren KINSELLA appears to have decided to go "all-in" and double-down on his Defamation lawsuit against Ezra LEVANT. Ezra has all the details on his blog today (with a 2 Alarm code) entitled:


"Ignatieff campaign files $5-million lawsuit to cover up Adscam involvement"


This seems to be turning into a legal skirmish by ideological proxy's for the Conservative and Liberal Partys battling with each other over insults invoked while discussing free speech at the Canadian Human Rights Commission. What a party!

At KINSELLA's blog there were 2 items of intersect 1) David AHENAKEW has been found Not GUILTY of Hate Crime - which he uses an an example why Criminal Code prosecutions are to ineffective against Hate Crime and 2) KINSELLA - as an advisor to The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) are aghast at Sid RYAN' sponsored CUPE votes to boycott Israeli universities. KINSELLA calls for decertification retaliation. Wow.

Black History Month - Tuskegee Institute

Yesterday President OBAMA made his first foreign "state visit" to Canada to meet with Prime Minister HARPER. This has been always been a great tradition, reflecting the unique relationship we have been fortunate to form with The United States of America but in typically Canadian fashion to my knowledge, we have never stood on ceremony about this issue. Nonetheless, it was a historic meeting and one much celebrated in the press. I think Martin Luther KING Jr. would have been enjoying the moment when OBAMA was greeted by Governor General Michelle JEAN and they both strolled down the carpet.

However invoking the name of MLK was not what I intended to focus on for Black History Month. It was this story that I came across at the U.S Center For Disease Control website.

U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee

From 1932 to 1972, the Public Health Service conducted a study on black men with syphilis, who were not offered treatment. In 1972 the US Government started a health benefit program for participants and families and in 1997 apologized for the study. The last widow receiving benefits died last month (January 2009).

In 1932, the Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute (now known as Tuskegee University), began studying syphilis in a group of black men in hopes of learning more about syphilis and trying to justify treatment programs for blacks. The study initially involved 600 black men – 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease. The study was conducted without the benefit of patients' informed consent.

During the study, participants were told that they were being treated for "bad blood," a local term used to describe several ailments, including syphilis, anemia, and fatigue. In truth, they did not receive the proper treatment needed to cure their illness.

In the wake of the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee and other studies, the federal government took a closer look at research involving human subjects and made changes to prevent the moral breaches that occurred in Tuskegee from happening again.

In 1997, President Bill Clinton made a formal apology to the survivors and the wives, family members, children and grandchildren of study participants. He said, "The American people are sorry -- for the loss, for the years of hurt. You did nothing wrong, but you were grievously wronged. I apologize and I am sorry that this apology has been so long in coming."

This is a chilling reminder that many of the "eugenic" theories and practices which were fairly commonly expressed in America, Canada, England, Europe and elsewhere - became the Jewish "Final Solution" under the Nazi's. And it is also a sad reminder of the extent of racial abuse in American History, but I admire that the Americans have faced it and do not "sweep it under the rug".

This is the honourable purpose behind commemorating Black History every February.

Paradoxes of Our Time (redux)

The paradox of our time is we spend more, but have less, We have taller buildings, but shorter tempers, We have more degrees, but less sense, We have more healthcare, but worse health, We spend recklessly, drive too fast and rise quickly to anger, We've been to the moon and back, We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've done bigger things, but not better things. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We communicate faster but connect less. These are times of fast foods, disposable diapers and more divorce We hear from tall men about mean character,	live in bigger houses, with smaller families. wider freeways,  but narrower viewpoints. more knowledge, and less judgment. more experts, yet more problems. yet we rarely laugh, smile less and forget to pray. but can’t cross the street to meet a new neighbour. We have higher incomes, but lower morals. We've added years to life, not life to years. We've become long on quantity, but short on quality. We talk too much and listen too little. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space. but less nutrition, slow indigestion and throw away morality. and read of steep profits from shallow relationships.
	NASA animation of Black Hole star Apologies to George CARLIN

"O Canada" banned in NB School - outrage at Principal

This item on CBC TV caught my attention on Thursday January 29 and I decided to email a call for sensibility on the issue. From how it was presented, the Principal - Mr. Eric MILLET of Bellisle Elementary in Springfield NB, decided to drop singing O Canada - our national* anthem because it's religious overtones made a few students "feel uncomfortable".

This rampant kind of mendicant "knee-jerk, zero-tolerant PC" response as soon as anyone voices a concern has become a huge problem in this country. And ironically, even those who we entrust to teach our children math, science, arts, history, geography and foreign languages - appear to completely lack the critical reasoning skills and social modeling behaviours needed to deal with relatively simple issues.

1) No one can compel anyone to sing our national anthem. That would be insane! We do not (yet) live in a Police State where where citizens are jailed for sedition. One just hopes they feel a sense of pride and attachment to our country to occasionally reflect on our duty and responsibility to keep it going instead of moving elsewhere in disgust.

2) It is possible that anyone could be offended by our national anthem - atheists, Muslims, pacifists, environmentalists, even non-Canadians yet is being offended for frivolous reasons sufficient to ban the national anthem for all, especially if they are the majority?

3) Another point for atheists, Muslims, pacifist, environmentalists and other new-Canadians to remember is that they are only perched on the shoulders of many others that came before them.

Here was the content of my email to Mr. MILLET, his (PC) MLA Bev HARRISON, the NB Education Minister, (Lib) Kelly LAMROCK, (Lib) Premier Shawn GRAHAM and (PC) MP for region, Greg Thompson. (It took quite a bit of effort to find these addresses.)

Principal Eric Millet and
Vice-Principal Heather Wilson
Belleisle Elementary School
1775 Route 124 Springfield
Kings County, New Brunswick E5T 2J91
T: (506) 485- 3025
F: (506) 485-3036
E: eric.millett@nbed.nb.ca

Re: CBC news item on your decision to ban singing the National Anthem.

I am absolutely APPALLED that you supposedly banned singing our National Anthem because 2 children felt “uncomfortable”. For heaven sakes, what about the rest of the school. And I suppose if they felt uncomfortable learning math you would grant them an exemption as well? (But it is probably not in your authority to flout the curriculum so obviously.) You model leadership by example and Civics is a duty you must teach just as much as any other subject.

As it was - this issue seems to have been resolved satisfactorily - in large part due to many Canadians across our country who were aghast at this incident. That is a wonderful endorsement of many things. 1) School Principals are accorded a large degree of authority within their their communities so they can respond quickly to local issues. 2) Despite such "decentralized" decision making, School Boards have final say and do listen and act on concerns of parents especially when it comes to policy matters. 3) Canadian's across the country can be very engaged on issues that they feel are central to their beliefs about Canadian identity - notwithstanding being physically far removed from the issue. This speaks well of our nation's dedication above and beyond partisan politics, but it may not serve the ends of some political ideologues. These are all good outcomes.

Regards,
Christopher R. JONES
Edmonton AB

cc: Hon. Greg Thompson, PC, MP Minister of Veterans Affairs House of Commons Room 175 East Block Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 T: 613-995-5550 F: 613-995-5226 E: Thompson.G@parl.gc.ca	Hon Shawn GRAHAM – Premier New Brunswick Centennial Building P. O. Box 6000 Fredericton, NB E3B 5H1 T: (506) 453-2144 F: (506) 453-7407 E: Shawn.Graham@gnb.ca	Hon. Kelly LAMROCK – Minister of Education Place 2000 P. O. Box 6000 Fredericton, NB E3B 5H1 T: (506) 453-2523 F: (506) 457-4960 E: kelly.lamrock@gnb.ca
Mr. Bev Harrison MLA Hampton-Kings Room: Unit 4 46 Keirstead Avenue Hampton, NB E5N 5A4 T: (506) 832-6464 F: (506) 832-6466 E: bev.harrison@gnb.ca

*Incidentally, here is the current version. The French lyrics have never been altered but the English lyrics (different) have been changed twice since adopted in 1908.

English – Current O Canada! Our home and native land! 1True patriot love in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North strong and free! 2From far and wide, O Canada, We stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee

French – Official Ô Canada! Terre de nos aïeux, Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux! Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, Il sait porter la croix! Ton histoire est une épopée Des plus brillants exploits. Et ta valeur, de foi trempée, Protégera nos foyers et nos droits Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

French – Translated O Canada! Land of our forefathers Thy brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers. As in thy arm ready to wield the sword, So also is it ready to carry the cross. Thy history is an epic of the most brilliant exploits. Thy valour steeped in faith Will protect our homes and our rights Will protect our homes and our rights.

Footnotes: 1) In 1914 Weir changed second stanza from “thou dost in us command” to "in all thy sons command". 2) In 1980, "From far and wide, O Canada" was changed from repetitive "We stand on guard."

Population Control is Green

COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned.

This reminds me of David SUZUKI's rabid suggestion that Canadian Political Leaders should be accused and charged with crimes against humanity for refusing to support environmental policies such as the Kyoto Protocol - in the same way as genocidal murders like Pol Pot.

Ok, at least he did issue a clarification saying he was misquoted out of context (a common crime of the left and one which he is often guilty, but no matter). At least Elizabeth MAY did not endorse the position.