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28 November 2002  

Something to be Thankful For

Mark Steyn is online.

02:15 PM |

27 November 2002  

aboutthewar.com

Objectivist Chip Joyce has started a blog.

06:57 PM |

22 November 2002  

Parasites Need Hosts

Colby Cosh considers Al Gore's national health care initiative and wonders:

[H]ow exactly is the U.S. going to adopt a single-payer national health care system "like Canada's"? The United States is missing an essential component of the Canadian system--namely, a large neighbour to the south with a working economy and a market-based health system.

07:12 AM |

21 November 2002  

Age of Enlightenment

Australian newspaper The Age has taken note (scroll down) of this particular corner of the web. Welcome, antipodean visitors!

01:07 PM |

20 November 2002  

Sorry, Can't Help You

I hate to disappoint, but must tell you, dear search engine-referred visitors, that:

• I have no idea whether Steven Sabados is gay. Well, OK, I actually have a very good idea, as you obviously do too, but nothing more concrete.


• That Panic Room ending still confuses me, too.


• The pagan religous adherents are called "Wiccans".

02:42 PM |

19 November 2002  

Patent Nonsense

The monthly Communist Car Club bill arrived tonight, accompanied by more anti-capitalist propaganda. This time it was the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace urging me to help in their effort to "Stop patents on life!" I visited their site and found an ugly mess of "greedy corporation" bashing, catch phrases meant to appeal to fear (the aforementioned "patents on life"), and other fallacies (we now have a "right to food," apparently; who knew?) Oh, and a picture of David Suzuki — of course! What I didn't find was anything to help me make an informed decision on the issue being fought: the WTO's proposed TRIPs (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights) agreement. From what I can gather this agreement would, through standardization of rules, make patents based on biological elements easier to enforce world-wide.

I'm not someone who thinks patents are always sensible. For example, I think it could be very successfully argued that patents have been improperly granted to trival "inventions" in the area of software. "One-click" shopping comes to mind. So, I'm definitely open to persuasion when it comes to this topic. But you aren't going to convince me with things like this:

FIVE CEREALS – A THOUSAND PATENTS! Almost 1000 patents on rice, corn, wheat, soya and sorghum are held primarily (69 per cent) by six agro-chemical companies: Aventis, Dow, DuPont, Mitsui, Monsanto and Syngenta.

Well, did the patented varieties of these cereals exist before these companies arrived on the scene? Somehow I doubt it, but I'll never find out such trivial details from these guys. A multinational corporation wants to patent life, for heaven's sake! That sounds scary and evil to them and they obviously think it's sufficient to prod people to action on the issue. Alas, it will no doubt convince some of my Commie Car cohorts. Sorry, not me.

One bit from their literature that I found just now does seem to support their cause, if true and if relevant to TRIPs:

In 1994 an American tourist bought a bag of locally-grown yellow beans while visiting Northern Mexico. He selected the best beans and, in 1997, patented them under U.S. patent law. An important Mexican staple food, the beans had also been exported to the United States for decades. Now, anyone who imports this variety into the U.S. must pay a fee to Pod-Ners, the patent-holding company. “This patent has caused great economic hardship for farmers in Northern Mexico,” says Miguel Felix, speaking for 22,000 Mexican farmers.

10:36 PM |

15 November 2002  

Getting Their Anti-War On

Protests opposing war on Iraq are scheduled for all across Canada this weekend. Most are on Sunday but here in Toronto the peaceniks had to defer to the Santa Clause parade and hold theirs on Saturday. It remains unclear which event will have more clowns. Speaking of clowns: tonight, to kick things off, what better person to have giving a lecture but Robert Fisk?

(In case you hadn't noticed, there have been several comments on the Goldberg post below and a few here, too.)

08:36 AM |

13 November 2002  

Musical Interlude

It isn't often I hear a song on CBC Radio that I'm not wishing will end ASAP, their playlists filled as they are with music aired not because it's good but because it's Canadian, but yesterday morning was different. I woke up to the sound of PE Islander Nathan Wiley's Comeback and instantly loved it. This morning I had the CD in hand and tonight it was my running music. There are several good tracks, including Home (a real tear-jerker) and Long Live Sin (a great sentiment, too, the way I take it). For once, thanks CBC!

(Torontonians can catch Wiley live Thursday night at the Rivoli.)

10:22 PM |

12 November 2002  

The Goldberg Observations

As a Canadian, I'm ashamed to say that I generally agree with what Jonah Goldberg has to say in his National Review cover story, reprinted today in the National Post. Anti-Americanism is a central aspect of the Canadian identity. And Goldberg only implies what I see as the ugliest aspect this reflexive hatred of the US: the fact that we insult the very things we depend upon. Our healthcare system would be in an even bigger shambles without the safetey valve of the state-of-the-art, always-available US system next door, but we moan about how heartlessly cold and mercenary it is. And we call Americans warmongers while we let our own military wither away to nothing, knowing who will be there to defend us when necessary.

No, my only real disagreement is with Goldberg's recommendation that the US bomb the CN Tower. Not only is it not an "unoccupied structure," but one of America's few defenders up here in Soviet Canuckistan works in its shadow. At least call me ahead of time, OK?

10:05 PM |

Like I Understand You

Justin Timberlake on how he feels about his sizable gay fanbase:

Um . . . honestly I've never really, uh, I've never really . . . something that I've thought a lot about . . . Something that I will say, you know, about the whole community is . . . that I appreciate is that . . . and the people that I've met that are, I mean, it's so nondiscriminating where music goes that it's . . . it's all . . I don't know, for some reason I find it in this community more than one another is that . . . you know, um . . . honestly, I don't know. I think, uh . . . I never really thought about it. I hope that, uh, all types of different people, they like it, I mean, 'cause uh . . . it's kinda somewhere in the middle of . . . of . . . of the styles that are going on right now . . . I don't want to come off sounding pretentious.

07:45 PM |

Around Oz for a Good Cause

Starting tomorrow, Canadian-born Perry Stone is racing the more than 14,000 km around Australia on his bicycle. That would be enough cause to admire him, but there's more: he's dedicating his effort to the victims of Bali and the fight against terrorism. "When young people are simply exercising their rights to merely enjoy their lives and are murdered for it, I must do whatever I can to put things right," he says. To top it all off, he's a big Ayn Rand fan. Go, Perry!

10:05 AM |

Light Switch

The next time my blogging stops unexpectedly it may be a blackout and not laziness that's to blame. Ontario's bungled attempt at some measure of electricity deregulation came to a screeching halt yesterday when our ("conservative"!) premier, Ernie Eves, alarmed by a public outcry over higher electricity bills, did an about face and imposed a price cap (more here). The effect of this cap is predictable to anyone with an elementary grasp of economics: having less incentive to reduce consumption, customers will increase their demand for power. But there isn't an unlimited supply of this commodity. Indeed, there's a shortage, due to private generators' fears of getting into a market whose ground rules — changeable at whim by the government — are so unpredictable. So, there will be power shortages. And, where the government compensates the utilities for increased generation costs, a hefty bill to taxpayers to boot.

While I'm predicting sure things, here's two more: (1) As with California, all the negative consequences of this short-sighted, ham-fisted government interference will be blamed on "deregulation." (2) I won't be voting for Ernie Eves in the next election.

08:10 AM |

11 November 2002  

No Sacrifice

Another Remembrance/Veteran's Day link, this one to combat all the "duty" and "sacrifice" talk you'll hear today: Honor Veterans, Rebuff Sacrifice.

08:01 AM |

Lest We Forget

Some worthwhile links in honor of Remembrance Day:

• Canadian wartime posters. A fascinating collection from World Wars I and II.
• The National Post's Remembrance Day feature.
• An American WWII veteran's story: "It was a long wait. I sure did have my mind in one place. That was home and with Doris. She was my strength, my pillar that I leaned on. I think that knowing that I could come home to someone that I loved, to somebody that loved me gave me a goal to stay alive. Hang in there." (Via Instapundit)
• A post from Bruce Rolston on the sorry state of our Canadian armed forces.
• John McRae's beautiful, haunting poem, In Flanders Fields.

06:50 AM |

10 November 2002  

Postpourri

Thanks for all the congratulations on my blog birthday. I really didn't intend to observe it by taking an extended hiatus. For some reason I just haven't felt sufficiently interested in posting anything recently. Let me try to break the inertia with this quick smattering of unrelated tidbits:

• I've read a couple of good books recently: Forty Words for Sorrow is a very well-written thriller by someone I'd never heard of before: Giles Blunt, a Canadian. Highly recommended. Making it extra-interesting for me was the fact that some of the story takes place in Toronto. It was neat, for example, to stumble upon a line that mentions a character looking out the window of the coroner's office at an apartment building across Grenville Street — and realize that it's the same apartment building a friend of mine lived in for several years. I also read Sue Grafton's latest, Q is for Quarry. Nothing spectacular, but a worthy addition to the Kinsey Millhone series.
• Last weekend I watched Gladiator for the first time. I liked it an awful lot and give it a rare 9/10. It's one of those works of art that's enjoyable not just for its own sake, but for its proof of the fact that there are brilliant people out there making such things.
• I note with sadness the early passing of Den Beste Digeste. I was really enjoying those summaries, Aaron!
• Colby Cosh wrote a great post about Kyoto recently, in which he lists the ten things you have to believe in order to support signing on to the treaty in good conscience.
• And speaking of Mr. Cosh (and Kyoto), a piece he wrote for Report magazine on my little run-in with the Star is now online.

09:19 PM |