Shorter Andrew Coyne: If you ignore the actual recent rail disaster that blew up a town, there’s little apparent risk of rail disasters. So let’s keep assuming the likelihood of future disasters is trivial. Now, some observers might ask how consistent a particular event is with a set of assumptions
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Accidental Deliberations: On glibertarianism
One of the more obvious points of convergence in political thought over the past 70-80 years is the greater appreciation of systemic complexity – the recognition that different decisions by many types of actors may collide in unpredictable ways, with the results potentially far outweighing the perceived impact of any
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Scott Sinclair discusses how CETA could create extreme and unnecessary risk in Canada’s banking and financial system: The failure of a single company (such as Lehman Brothers in October 2008) or unchecked growth in markets for high-risk financial products (such as sub-prime
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Deborah Gyapong discusses CMA President Anna Reid’s presentation to the federal All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus, with the positive response of MPs from all parties looking like a particularly noteworthy development: The CMA put forward seven recommendations for governments at all levels to examine
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: Andrew Coyne’s Letter To Ezra: The Secret First Draft
Andrew Coyne, in response to a query from Ezra Levant, has written a short letter outlining his position with respect to the CRTC’s granting CBC special distribution rights. I have been able to acquire (through secret sources at the National Post) an early draft of this letter, which I think
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Andrew Coyne notes that the Robocon decision finding electoral fraud using the Cons’ voter database fell short of naming names – but recognizes that there’s still a glaring need for further investigation, a sentiment echoed by the Globe and Mail. Tim Harper explains
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: At Issue Panel Opines On Harper and the Scandal
I have a bit of a busy morning, so I only have time for a couple of short posts. For reasons I have indicated elsewhere, I rarely watch CBC’s The National anymore. However, given yesterday’s shameful and feeble refusal by the Prime Minister and his trained seals to address the
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Pack the Senate with cheats, then call for reform, then take off for Peru? Good plan!
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, not pictured because he’s pretty well disappeared, has heeded the touristic lure South America, illustrated above. Below: Canadian Parliamentarian Joan Crockatt and U.S. Representative Davy Crockett. Note to Globe and Mail: There is a difference! Below them: Allaudin Merali. Prime Minister Stephen Harper was apparently grinding
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Not surprisingly, plenty of commentators have weighed in on the latest set of Senate scandals engulfing Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Nigel Wright and Stephen Harper among others. Diane Francis takes the opportunity to point out that the Senate is an institutional anachronism (a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – Daniel Boffey catches one of David Cameron’s top aides saying what most Cons leave as an unstated assumption: that recession and depressed wages are good for business (as long as “business” is defined only to mean short-term profits based on exploitation): The prime
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – George Monbiot writes about the absurdity of the right-wing choice to promote inequality in the name of competition among the wealthy when the ultimate results are worse for everybody: The capture by the executive class of so much wealth performs no useful
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, building off of my previous analysis on the current positioning of Canada’s federal parties. For further reading, see:– Bob Hepburn and Carol Goar on the purpose and effect of attack ads in general; and– Andrew Coyne on the Cons’ particular brand of personal attack, featuring some suggestions to reduce
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Paul Krugman discusses how a myopic focus on slashing taxes and services figures to cheat future generations out of desperately-needed social structure: You don’t have to be a civil engineer to realize that America needs more and better infrastructure, but the latest “report
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Edward Greenspon discusses the importance of a public service whose focus extends beyond the narrow interests of the government of the day: The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work for governments, particularly those employed – in the evolving argot of recent
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Yves Engler highlights the two-tiered justice system exacerbated by the Harper Cons, as anybody with a sufficient level of privilege avoids any punishment for wrongdoing: One law for the rulers and another for the rest of us — wasn’t that supposed to
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: LPoC Registration Cracks 100,000
From an email I received yesterday evening from Matt Certosimo, the National Membership Secretary: Presumably, the deadline extension will give the party time to contact anyone who is serious about following-up on their original contact, although I expect the final tally will be embarrassingly low. That said, if Joyce Murray hangs tough for
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Electoral Reform: The Case that 7 of the 8 Liberal candidates will not or cannot answer
Andrew Coyne – truthteller Andrew Coyne in an article in the Vancouver Sun headed To improve our politics we have to repair our broken electoral system, puts a devastating case forward as to why pre-election cooperation followed by post-electoral meaningful electoral reform is necessary: If you never make the case
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova offer up a framework for a more progressive and fairer tax system. – Andrew Hanon looks behind the Fraser Institute’s labour-bashing and finds that what it’s really criticizing is fair pay for women in the public sector.
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: On Debating What Might Occur In The Aftermath Of The Reform Or Abolition Of The Canadian Senate
Debating what might occur in the aftermath of the reform or abolition of the Canadian Senate, as Andrew Coyne does in the OpEd piece through the link, is like debating whether, if pigs should ever fly, we should all wear a protective helmet while flying our flying pig. Pigs won’t
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Justin Trudeau, read Andrew Coyne if you are a bold, serious leader
Andrew Coyne The debate is gathering steam, and Andrew Coyne has posed several questions which every candidate for leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada (and particularly Justin Trudeau, whose father modernized the Canadian democracy almost beyond compare with his priceless gift of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms): Fundamentally,
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