December 2005
You are currently browsing the articles from Jay Currie written in the month of December 2005.
Interesting article in the NYT today on the cleanup after Katrina:
The cleanup from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was 45 percent finished in jurisdictions that called in the corps, and nearly 70 percent complete in communities that employed private contractors, state records showed. The imbalance remained even when New Orleans, where the cleanup has been particularly complex and slow, was removed from the tally. Across the Gulf Coast, the cleanup was, on average, about 60 percent done, records showed.
nyt
This is the sort of idea that the CPC should be taking into the second half when it comes to questions like healthcare and education - private sector providers tend to be a tad more efficient. That matters.
Written by jay on December 26th, 2005 with 1 comment.
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Just back from a walk through Beacon Hill park to the ocean with Sam. A couple of hours of clambering up rocks and through mud. He had a marvelous time and, I suspect, will remember the walk long after Christmas presents have been forgotten. There was a seal swimming towards Ogden Point and hundreds of people enjoying the gentle sea air. It was abbout 60 degrees yesterday and much the same today.
I walked up to the Anglican cathedral last night for the Christmas communion. The place was standing room only. At a guess there would have been 2000 people. the Christmas Eucharist is always a wonderful service but the Cathedral, with a full choir, the marvelous organ and a string section, celebrated the birth of Jesus in grand style. It is, after all, diffficult to go wrong with Mozart.
It had been a long time since I could attend a Christmas Eucharist. Too busy, too far away, too scattered; but when I heard the Cathedral bells I realized how much I had missed the Anglican Church.
It was a small Christmas gift to myself. A precious one.
Merry Christmas all.
Written by jay on December 26th, 2005 with 1 comment.
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Kulmatycki said police determined quickly that Skinner was the intended target of the shooters, and warned residents of Turf Grassway that they need not fear “bandits” are running loose among their homes.
the starNow either someone is a very lazy copy editor or Turf Grassway is a very much more dangerous place than one might think.
Meanwhile, here is a description of the shooters who were popping a few caps outside a daycare center:
The investigation is moving forward he said, adding police have preliminary descriptions of two suspects. Both are males, believed to be nearly 6 feet, wearing heavy, black winter coats with faux fur around the hoods, which were “pulled up in a definite effort to disguise their identity,” Kulmatycki said.
the star
Now I realize that political correctness is important; but a description tends to demand at least a passing reference to the race of the perps…any race.
The daycare is at Jane and Finch…the victim is known to the police.
Written by jay on December 25th, 2005 with no comments.
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No question about it - the first half of the election campaign has seen the CPC’s announcement a day strategy and the willingness of the media to cut Harper some slack take the CPC rather quickly out of the blocks. The expectations were pretty low for the CPC and they met and beat all of them.
If this was a conventional campaign I would be hedging my 50 CPC seat projection upwards. Assorted Ontario bloggers believe they are seeing “shifts”. The Tiger has been having dinner with people who voted Liberal last time and are voting CPC this time. Greg Staples is seeing “panicked Liberals” and he who must not be linked is seeing movement in Southern and Eastern Ontario.
This is not, however, a normal campaign. We are about to have the week long Christmas/New Years half time show where, blissfully, Harper, Martin, Gomery, smilin’ Jack and all the rest will be entirely forgotten. Like kids coming back from summer vacation, the electorate is likely to forget at least half and maybe more of what has been said and by whom. (Which is what Scott Reid is devoutly hoping Santa is bringing him for Christmas along with a couple of cases of beer and some of Orville’s finest.)
Come the kickoff for the second half it is a pretty good bet that Paul Martin will actually start campaigning and David Herle will push the big red button marked “negative”.
The Liberals have a 10 point national lead going into halftime according to SESDespite Warren Kinsella’s best efforts and pious hopes, they are 7 points ahead in Ontario and, amazingly, 2 points up in the West.
But, most of all, because the CPC was so badly suckered in forcing the election over Christmas, effectively any gains, any momentum, which the CPC built over the first weeks of the campaign is now going to vanish in a haze of turkey, Crown Royal and too much hockey.
At the half I’m pretty sure Harper is dead on course for 50 seats and resignation. And I am equally sure that Martin is not going to win a majority and will resign as well….so there is some Christmas cheer after all.
Update: I have never had much faith in Ipsos-Reid polling but, for what it is worth their current poll has the Libs and the Tories neck and neck with the following regional takes:
The rise in Tory fortunes has been most evident in Ontario, where they are supported by 38 per cent of voters (up from 28 per cent in mid-December). The Liberals have dropped from 47 per cent to 40 per cent in the province.
In B.C., however, the Liberals are gaining — rising from 33 per cent to 40 per cent. They have won most of those intended votes from the Green party (down to five per cent from eight per cent) and from the Tories (down from 33 per cent to 30 per cent.)
ottawa citizen
Interestingly, Ipsos tracks the Liberals as only 2 points ahead in Ontario - so the SES Ipsos comparison is, in fact, within the margin of error. Prepare the chicken cannon Corporal Herle….usual load, three parts slime, two hidden agenda and a dash of scary.
No one has ever gone far wrong underestimating the gullibility of Toronto Star readers.
Written by jay on December 24th, 2005 with 4 comments.
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Alan McLeod, of Gen-X at 40 and, now, CBC fame, writes,
One thing that we may have to admit is that sooner or later medical technology will advance to the point that we cannot afford it. It is a marvel what can be done now but is it a marvel that we can afford? At a certain point - and one that we may have passed long ago - wellness and prevention should become more and more important than dealing with the after-effects of the modern, idle and indulgent society.
cbc
I agree with much of what Alan is saying in the piece; but I can’t help but suggest that the mid-range prospect is for a decline in the costs of medical care driven by technology. Scanning and analytic technolgies are tending to follow the PC model of much great capacity at lower and lower cost, DNA based testing and therapy is following the same trend. Targeted cancer treatments, some employing rudimentary nanotechnology, are more accurately hitting the tumours and reducing the collateral damage.
Preventative strategies from half an aspirin and a glass of red wine a day, to statin drugs through the early use of TPA where indicated are postponing the onset and the morbidity of cardio vascular disease.
The combination of intelligent preventative and wellness measures, early detection, targetted treatment and clever use of emerging medical and technical procedures will tend to cap and then decrease healthcare expenses.
There is only one problem: these advances and cost savings are currently being administered by a monopoly which has no particular interest in cost reduction. As Kate McMillian points out, the healthcare workers - from head surgeon to apprentice bottle washer - are paid and paid well regardless of outcome.
Without the impetus of competition, healthcare costs, if not the actual cost of the technology and medicine employed, will continue to increase.
One of the sillier beliefs on the right is that the demand for healthcare in the absence of an allocation of resources by price is effectively unlimited. This cannot be true else Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would be having a colonoscopy a day instead of playing bridge. Most economists understand this but somehow that has not penetrated the wooly heads of our political leaders.
What is effectively unlimited is the demand for monopoly prices for everything from brain surgery to bedpan changing within the healthcare monopoly.
Until there is a real, competive alternative in Canada the temptation to monopoly price and to avoid more efficient technologies and proceedures will be overwhelming.
Written by jay on December 23rd, 2005 with 2 comments.
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Alberta Conservatives on the move….Sean McCormick has the picture
Written by jay on December 22nd, 2005 with 2 comments.
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These days, whenever something goofy turns up on the news, chances are it involves a fellow called Mohammed. A plane flies into the World Trade Centre? Mohammed Atta. A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet. A sniper starts killing petrol station customers around Washington, DC? John Allen Muhammed. A guy fatally stabs a Dutch movie director? Mohammed Bouyeri. A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed. A gang-rapist in Sydney? Mohammed Skaf.
Maybe all these Mohammeds are victims of Australian white racists and American white racists and Dutch white racists and Balinese white racists and Beslan schoolgirl white racists.
But the eagerness of the Aussie and British and Canadian and European media, week in, week out, to attribute each outbreak of an apparently universal phenomenon to strictly local factors is starting to look pathological. “Violence and racism are bad”, but so is self-delusion.
the spectator
Steyn is writing about the riots in Sydney. But he is also making the point that the issue of assimilation versus maintaining a distinct, religiously mandated, cultural and political identity is one which the West has yet to come to grips with.
The multi-cultural happy chat hits the wall when the Khadr family and their supporters become involved. It hits the wall hard.
Written by jay on December 22nd, 2005 with no comments.
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Dean over at Dean’s World suggests that the great huff in the US about warrantless wiretaps is actually about Project ECHELON.
TM Lutas says it very well: Essentially, what the executive order did was change the rules for which intercepted conversations were subject to human scrutiny. It’s absurd to think that already intercepted conversations cannot be listened to by agents of the executive absent a warrant. What is going on is not a new search but rather analysis of an already ongoing search, a search that’s been continually conducted in the world for decades. So if this search was OK during the Clinton administration (ECHELON far predates it) during peacetime, the exigencies of wartime mean we should blind our existing eyes? What kind of nonsense is this?
Dean’s World
What Lutas is suggesting is that the net move by Bush consisted of saying that human agents rather than machines could listen to the intecepts which were being made in any event. Trivial hardly begins to describe the distinction.
Written by jay on December 20th, 2005 with 15 comments.
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Harper isn’t running away from a stance on a single issue. He’s running away from the entire philosophy of governance he espoused as a “private citizen”. That’s a lot to swallow. Without some kind of rationale for that change, Harper is also exposing himself as unfit for the PM’s office. Either he’s lying now about what he believes, or he doesn’t believe in anything. If I wanted that, I might as well keep Paul Martin in office.
tilting at windmills
As thoughtful conservatives go Kevin is in the upper right hand drawer. I suspect, reading his excellent piece, that had Harper the slightest hint of the courage of his convictions - whether his 1997 convictions or his present ones - Kevin might well vote for him. But, as it stands, watching Harper back away from some rather pithy and trenchent things he said in 1997 leaves Kevin stuck for a choice.
I am quite certain that if Jack Layton is the answer we are all asking the wrong question. But when this election is finally over, and the Liberals form another minority government and the CPC is reduced to a Western rump, it will be time to start asking the right questions. Top of the pile: is there a conservative who does not see pandering as the sole means of climbing the greasy pole?
Written by jay on December 20th, 2005 with 2 comments.
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The Zerb wonders about polling given that so many journalists are innumerate. Greg Staples is looking at the SES leadership index to find signs of life in the CPC/Harper campaign.
Me, well I am looking at the SES December 19 numbers: 38 Lib, 29 CPC, 16% NDP and the regional breakdowns which - while they have a substantially higher margin of error, are interesting for trend:
Atlantic Lib 54, CPC 26, NDP 21 (+/-10)
Quebec Lib 32, CPC 10, Bloq 49 (+/-6)
Ontario Lib 46, CPC 32, NDP 19 (+/-6)
West Lib 32, CPC 42, NDP 19 (+/-5)
What the regionals are suggesting, and have been suggesting for some time, is that the CPC is not very close in Ontario and the Maritimes. About the only thing slowing the Liberals down is the NDP’s strength. However, as election day nears it is a good bet that the CLC will wheel out Buzz to explain strategic voting again and while the NDP popular support will only take a modest hit, where it counts, a good number of people are going to switch their NDP vote to the Liberals.
In the West the CPC looks pretty strong but here the question is voting efficiency. I’ve no doubt that Monte Solberg will take Medicine Hat with 70 or 80% of the vote and that this pattern will be repeated in many Alberta and Interior British Columbia ridings. Which will soak up the ten point CPC margin in the West before they actually hold any marginal seats or come close to winning any new ones.
In Quebec, the two questions are will the Bloq take 50% of the popular vote and will the Liberals manage to hang on to the shrinking perimeter of their Montreal redoubt. Is there enough money and enough ethnics to see the Liberals home with, say, 15 seats? I am hoping the Liberals are beaten back to Westmount simply because they need to understand how fundamentally Adscam has alienated Quebeckers.
Harper has been having a wonderful campaign. No gaffes, lots of interesting policy iniatives, a much greater sense of assurance — and it simply does not matter. As I predicted months ago, the SSM albatros is hung from his neck with a Kevlar rope. It is becoming the touchstone issue I suspected it would be.
If Harper and the CPC had gone with the idea that individual rights lie at the heart of modern conservatism they would have been able to diffuse this issue. It would have represented a genuinely fresh approach to the nature of governance and politics in Canada and it would have set an agenda which the Liberals could not have matched.
As it stands, the CPC is stuck with an incoherent platform plank which the Liberals gleefully are using as a proxy for the entire socon agenda.
Pathetic.
The only good news is that my own analysis suggests that we are going to have a Liberal minority, a Bloq Official Opposition and new leaders for bboth the Liberal and the Conservative parties.
Written by jay on December 20th, 2005 with 2 comments.
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