The National Post Should Fire That Anti-Vaxxer Prick

National Post columnist Lawrence Solomen is now running an anti-vaxxer website.  You can see it here.  This is from the "About us" section:

VaccineFactCheck, headed by Lawrence Solomon, is a project of Consumer Policy Institute.

The "Consumer Policy Institute" is also just more Solomon, another part of his "Energy Probe" network of  astro-turf groups pushing various corporate causes.

Now, Solomon probably wouldn't call it an anti-vaxxer site; he'd probably just claim he was trying to "teach the controversy".  But that is, of course, bullshit.  And after that whole thing with The Star's Gardisil article I thought the whole nation had come to the conclusion that this kind of ant-vaccine  fear mongering was beyond the pale.  But not the National Post, apparently.

So here's a call out to Andrew Coyne, who is apparently some kind of editorial big-wig over there at the NP these days:  fire Lawrence Solomen.  Ditch the kook.  Show some class.

Things We Learned During Ontario Election 2014: Conservative Ideologues Should Be Convulsed With Doubt And Self-Loathing

Take Andrew Coyne, for example. This guy is known among Canada's literati as "the journalist who knows math".  He's always saying "Well, the iron laws of Economics will prevent that!" and so forth. And when he says it what he means is that your figgers don't add up.  So what happened when he realized that Tim Hudak's 1,000,000 jobs plan made no sense unless you divided all his numbers by 8?  He endorsed the guy anyway!  He essentially abandoned mathematical Platonism, implicitly denied the reality of the number line, turned all Constructivist or, god help us,  into some kind of  late Wittgensteinian.  He claimed, in effect: "Whatever! Numbers do what I tell them to!

He's certainly not the only person to exhibit the same hubris.  Anyone who endorsed the "Hudak Plan" in spite of the innumeracy at its heart falls into the same boat. And it was these guys, who were willing to offer the PCPO an intellectual version of affirmative action for conservatives--They're morons, but their heart is in the right place!  PASS!--who actually cost team Tory the election.

Because you can't run on an austerity platform with bad math in it!  Because austerity brings pain, and you have to be able to demonstrate to people that if you put all the minuses together the right way you get a big plus at the end. Eat your spinach now, and you will get pie later! If you can't demonstrate this, your austerity platform starts to look like gratuitous cruelty, and you like a jerk who can't add.  Eat your spinach now!  And that's all your getting!  Spinach!  Nothing but spinach!  Yea for spinach!

And in the end that is how Tim Hudak will be remembered.: as an innumerate jerk bearing spinach. And the Conservative movement as a whole has been revealed as punishment loving folk who fetishize certain numbers (that Debt to GDP ratio sure is huge!)  but have no real idea how to manipulate them correctly according to the eternal laws of rational thought.

And that's not a good place to be.

Andrew Coyne: The Case For Heartlessness

After coming to the aid of James Moore when the Industry Minister displayed his rabid child eating hating tendencies, Andrew is working up a new column in defense of Canada Post's Deepak Chopra, another Harper appointee, who stated recently that that seniors would welcome the exercise brought about by the discontinuation of door-to-door mail service and the introduction of community mailboxes.

I have recieved a copy of the first draft of Andrew's column, which I reproduce below without comment:

We can argue about the causes and about whether it is a worthy metric, but it is at least worth noting that 76% of seniors in Canada today own at least one gold encrusted walker with an attached jet pack. It is beyond question that we are  dealing with a segment of the Canadian civitas that is swathed in decades of nanny-state entitlement, and which desperately needs to be disrobed before the cold winds of Economic Reality.  

This is not to advocate any sort of truly radical solution.  For example, melting the old down into Soylent Green, which could then be redistributed through the back window of our limosines as a form of edible, if sticky, coinage to those indigent laborors who will later be shipped off to work in the Alberta Tar Mines or wherever required by the iron necessities of Neo-Liberteranian Theory, would strain the social consensus of the day.  Nevertheless, any initiative that can liberate the "stranded labour" of  our elderly, now wasted in the form of trips to Florida and summer evenings spent on the porch "whittling", should not be dismissed out of hand.

In fact, as we near Xmas I would suggest that we owe both Mr. Moore and Mr. Chopra a hearty thanks, for they have brought us the gift of Economic Clarity.  I am reminded of that touching scene in "A Christmas Story" where the venerable Scrooge whips that cripple with his belt: "More?  You want MORE?  While more you shall get, ingrate!"  And then: Smack!  Smack!  SMACK SMACK SMACK!!!  Smack...Smack!!...SMACK SMACK!!!!

I funny thing is, I kind of agree with Coyne on this issue.

The Reform Act: The Pro-Life View

Some quotes from a vvvvery interesting Lifesite piece:

Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition, said that while he saw positive aspects of the bill, it could hamstring a good leader from working towards pro-life-and-family legislation.

And, my favorite:

Though Chong is deemed “not supportable” by Campaign Life Coalition because of his support for abortion up to 20 weeks gestation, the bill could come as a boon to pro-life-and-family advocates seeking to run as candidates.

Outspoken pro-life advocates have a history of being rejected from the top as candidates for a riding.

In 2007 Conservative party brass in Ottawa cut off Heather Stilwell’s run for the Conservative nomination in a B.C. riding. Stilwell had launched her campaign prior despite warnings that the Conservative Party would not allow her to run due to her history as a prominent advocate for the right-to-life and the traditional family. The party’s decision was reversed days after LifeSiteNews.com broke the story.

Harper rejected the candidacy of outspoken social conservative John Pacheco, organizer of the 15,000-strong March for Marriage on Parliament Hill in 2005, during the Ottawa West nomination that same year in a move to protect the party’s preferred candidate John Baird, a staunch proponent of homosexual ‘marriage’.

Pacheco, an unflinching pro-life advocate who runs the blog Socon or Bust, welcomed the news of Chong’s bill.

“Since the political culture in Ottawa is firmly rooted in the culture of death, any structural change that lessens its grip and gives more influence and leverage to the pro-life movement and pro-life MPs is a good thing,” he told LifeSiteNews.com.

“Time and time again, whether it's abortion, gay ‘marriage’, or euthanasia, we see that the people are against these totalitarian and destructive ideologies, yet the political class and the power-brokers behind the scenes ram it through anyway.”

Pacheco sees the bill as benefiting the political effort to protect unborn life.

“It stands to reason that anything we can do to saturate government's power is a good thing for the pro-life movement. This measure and any others like it should be strongly backed by people who value family and life,” he said.

So, Andrew Coyne, whose totally hot for Chong's bill, doesn't have any truck with the worry that extremists might use The Reform Act to infiltrate and undermine mainstream political organizations and, well, bring in Reform Party-style legislative changes.

@punditsguide All for debate. There are stronger arguments and weaker arguments. “Neo-Nazis will take over” = weaker.
— Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) December 4, 2013

But this may be because he doesn't think extremists will bother to even attempt a take-over.  But now I think its obvious that they will bother.  Perhaps this fact will cause Andrew to reconsider...

PS.  Welcome back Flanders!  Love you, crazy dude!

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 more clearly reveals Andrew's state of mind during these hard times in the newspaper business:

So there you have it.

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 the next couple of weeks this could still be an interesting race.  She can't win, but her message of LPoC/NDP cooperation is resonating in some quarters, and I'd be curious to see if she can move the field, or what is left of it, in her direction a bit.  I sincerely hope the T.O. showcase isn't cancelled.  I was told there would be food.

As for Coyne's column this morning, ignore it.  He's been rehearsing bits of it on twitter since last week; the honest outrage it expresses is all fake.

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.  But pigs won't fly, ever, so why waste time debating the issue?

That is all.

Andrew Coyne Calls The Next Election

Unless something astonishing happens, the Wildrose Party will form the next government of Alberta. All that remain is to discover whether it will be a minority or majority.

Oh wait!  That's him calling the last election.  This is him calling the next one.  I was going to give his latest a thorough critiquing, but now I'm thinking...why bother?

I'm Waiting For Andrew Coyne

...'s next lecture on only Conservatives really "get" Capitalism.

Elizabeth May Among Frontrunners In Unscientific LPoC Leadership Poll

You can still vote for her here.  Presumably Andrew Coyne supporters are playing some kind of elaborate prank, or think funeral home directors are sexy.

Rumour: Reporter Who Broke Robocon Story Booted From Manning Conference Party!

Source.  Confirmed here (M. Rowe from Ipolitics)  among other places.

PS.  On a related matter, don't get too excited by Coyne's column from yesterday, mourning how the CPoC's has lost its principles.  He's been writing the same piece for years now.  They still let him into their events, which means that being reamed by Coyne, for a CPoC hardcore, is a bit like being spanked by your grandma.  It doesn't hurt that much.  It isn't meant to.

Update: Dawg has some details that I missed, including the fact that Glen McGregor of the Ottawa Citizen was there and left the party in solidarity with Maher.

But So What?

Dalton McGuinty is right about the oil sands and its effect on Canadian manufacturers, says Andrew Coyne, but there's nothing anyone can do about it so we all might as well suck it up, or, better, move to Fort Mac with our shovels.

But if you let your resource extraction industries overwhelm your manufacturing sector, when the oil runs out you wind up with neither. And of course some things can be done about it, as this study suggests.  But these things would involve Alberta giving over some of its oil money to the feds and when you raise that possibility the talk out in Calgary switches from pablum about the national interest to what the flag for an independent state should look like.

And have I ever mentioned the irony of a columnist at The Post, which has NEVER turned a profit since the day it launched, lecturing anyone about the rigours of Capitalism?  That's like being given lessons in boating safety by the captain of The Titanic.

Freak Scene: Man Returns To Sinking Ship!

Not something you see everyday.  And, yes, Andrew, when your career change finally comes, I do want fries with that.

Andrew Coyne Booted Out Of Conservative Movement!

...Coyne lost his “right” to be the defender of conservatism with his choice of being tight within the liberal media establishment and should stop trying to give advice to us who would never support a Liberal.

B.C. Blue (author of the above) is one of the thuggier Blogging Tories, spending much of his time harassing journalists over the Internet.  He also projects as a dork in a dorky suit--so that's strike two-- and is in tight with the B.C. Conservative Party.  Yes, I know what you're thinking--who the fuck are the B.C. Conservative Party?  Didn't they die off long ago?

As for Mr. Coyne, if he's looking to defect, to floor cross as it were, I know people who can help.  There are still dorky suit issues that will have to be dealt with.  But if Mr. Coyne wants to email me his shoe size, I can have a decent pair of sandals ready for him when he jumps the fence.

Canadian Cynic On Coyne

Its like haiku, but more cynical.

Andrew Coyne: Iggy Should Pull On His Necktie Until It Hurts

The latest from Canada's most prominent concern troll: the leader of the opposition ought to lick the third rail of politics, act more responsibly than the actual government! And if he does do this licking, Andrew Coyne promises to wave a vague titty of support in his direction for half a blog post or so.

Coyne Aflame

I'd heard he was pissed off at the Manning Centre Conference 2009 in Ottawa. But wow! This is almost as exciting as watching Hendrix set his guitar on fire and play it with his teeth!

h/t this guy.

More Pork

Jay Hill shovels Eastern $$$s out of the back of his pickup truck with a pitchfork! Chetwynd, Tumbler Ridge, and The Village of Pouce Coupe win big!

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne contemplates ending it all: "It wasn't supposed to be like this! We're supposed to be Conservatives, goddamn it!"

Don't Look To The Music Industry

...for solutions to the newspaper industry's problems. A nifty discussion between Wells & Coyne re the troubles faced by CanWest and others. About half-way in, Coyne suggests that they look to the music business for a way out: invent some kind of nifty new way to read the news (like an IPOD), and move towards micro-payments (like the various on-line music services).

Well, lots of things to argue with here. For one thing, $1 a download is hardly "micro-payment" given the fact that you're buying a product with degraded sound (MP3 and other similar file types sound OK over headphones; you lose the bass when played over a real sound system).

But the larger point is that these new technologies helped stabilize an industry that was in decline on the upside of a business cycle. Now that times are tough, expect a bloodbath. The RIAA is hemorrhaging staff as struggling record companies withdraw support for a business strategy that involves suing your customers.

You can't learn to swim by watching a drowning man, in other words.

Incidentally, its interesting to point out that the P2P movement was in part at least an explicit attempt to, in the words of FreeNet creator Ian Clarke, implement "online socialism". Like many socialist endeavours, FreeNet didn't work very well and Clarke had to renounce these sentiments when he got older and found a real job, but the various Gnutella knockoffs inspired by Julien Frankel's original have done more to change the business landscape of the planet than Karl Marx ever did.

PS. Doesn't Coyne look better in casual wear? He should ditch the suits that make him look like an undertaker.

Or Maybe Nobody Will Care

Chantal Hebert outlines the political upside for Harper in picking a brawl with the provinces over setting up a national securities regulator. I, on the other hand, see only a slappy fight amongst the four pundits who worry about such things. I see Andrew Coyne whipping out his spread-sheet, and demonstrating why people call him "the journalist guy that knows math". As for the rest of us, the indifference is palpable.

C'mon, Chantal, its cold out. Bring back Julie Couillard.