Author: pogge

I’ll start with a tip of the hat to Moose at Classic Blues Videos for tonight’s opener. There’s a bio of the artist at that link. This is Corey Harris with Everybody Ought-ta Make a Change….

When the final report of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism was issued earlier this month, it was noted that when the group conducted hearings it chose to hear oral submissions from only 74 of the 150 individuals or groups that applied. Mario Silva, the Chair of the Coalition’s Inquiry Panel, didn’t make excuses or apologies for that: Silva said some groups that wanted to appear before the committee were comprised of people who condemned the panel’s work from the outset. "I didn’t really want to give a platform to individuals who had no time for us and so why should we have time for them?" said Silva. That doesn’t really speak to a desire to understand all points of view but since this was not an official government project and was originally presented as being privately funded — and came with a promise to reveal funding sources when the final report was issued — you could argue that they had a right to run the project the way they chose. After all, it says right on the group’s About Us page: The CPCCA is not affiliated with the Government of Canada… Which would be fair enough except for…

Here in southern Ontario, we’ve been having quite the heat wave. While it’s a bit more reasonable today, I don’t think it’s over just yet. And obviously southern Ontario isn’t the only jurisdiction suffering. From the Washington Post (via Chris Mooney at DeSmogBlog): Nationally, 1,966 daily high maximum temperature records have been broken or tied so far this month (through July 23). Sixty-six of those records were all-time maximum temperature records.More impressive, however, are the figures for highest minimum temperature records. Because of the extremely high humidity levels during this heat wave, a whopping 4,376 record highest minimum temperature records were broken or tied through July 23. Of those minimum temperature records, 158 were all-time records. As Mooney points out, this kind of extreme weather event is one of the easier phenomena to link to the climate change caused by GHG emissions. This is exactly what the studies suggest we can expect. And I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the economic effect of long stretches of extreme heat and humidity. Does it have a serious effect on productivity? What are the costs associated with health related issues? How about the extra use of energy to power…

Quite a few in the blogosphere and the twitterstream have pointed out this post by a Canadian artist whose own government is trying to silence her and to bully others into withdrawing their sponsorship of her show. Curiously, I haven’t heard any complaint from our most stalwart and uncompromising champions of free speech like Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn. But I’m sure it’s just an oversight. Maybe they’re all on vacation, camping in the wilderness, and just haven’t heard yet. Yeah, that must be it….

You know how big name musical acts often have specific corporations sponsoring their tours? Welcome to politics in the 21st century. Twenty-six organizations invested between $5,000 and $50,000 to sponsor the two-day premiers’ meeting in Vancouver this week. The list of sponsors include companies from the gas and oil, transportation and pharmaceutical industries. It’s claimed that corporate sponsors aren’t paying for special access and my reply to that would be: they already have special access. How else do you explain the fact that it’s corporations who have all the money but they’re the ones who keep getting their taxes cut? And even if this is just for advertising purposes, since when is government a vehicle for advertising? Why don’t they just have "Property of Exxon Mobil" stamped on their foreheads and have done with it? In politics, perception is everything. And the perception this encourages is that our elected officials are bought and paid for. On second thought, maybe I should applaud them for finally being open about it….

I was born and raised in Toronto but I haven’t lived there in about 30 years, so I haven’t had anything to say thus far about the election of Rob Ford and all the controversy that has accompanied it. But I really can’t let this pass. This is Ford explaining to talk radio host John Oakley why he thinks Toronto’s labour costs are too high and there should be large reductions in staffing: In business, the first thing you look at is the labour and your labour should be making up, you know, maximum 20 per cent. Not, well, we’re at 80 per cent. It’s just unheard of. Now don’t you think that might depend on the business you’re in? If you’re manufacturing, it’s quite possible that raw materials, plant and equipment will account for 80 per cent of your costs while labour represents the other 20 per cent. And if the raw materials represent the biggest chunk of that 80 per cent, it’s entirely possible that’s the first place you should look when you’re trying to reduce costs. But if you’re running a software business, as one example, I’d suggest that 80:20 ratio doesn’t work very well. Analysis, development,…