The Guy Who Said Of Child Pornography

...it's just pictures, is back in The Globe.  And Margaret Wente remains there.  Globe is all but invisible behind its firewall these days.  I'm not sure its worth boycotting.

Innocent No More

Arnell Tailfeathers is the guy who uploaded the footage that blew up Tom Flanagan:

"It wasn't to completely discredit him. I mean when we came into that discussion that evening, we didn't know what to expect," said Arnell Tailfeathers, a freelance videographer.

"We just thought ... if something happens — we better document it."

Yeah, I'm not buying it. Somebody found that old article in the Manitoban where Flanagan talked child pornography.  And someone  made sure a question about that article got asked when Flanagan appeared at the University of Lethbridge. And then Mr. Tailfeathers posted the video, and  seems to have run a twitter spam campaign  the night of Feb. 27th  to insure that it got noticed.  Of course nobody could know that Flanagan would go off like that, but to claim it was all a spontaneous goof...

I'd prefer to think that the folks at Idle No More, with whom Mr. Tailfeathers is associated, are starting to think beyond road blockades and towards a more creative form of resistance.

Tom Flanagan Child Porn Comments Update

The PMO takes him out to the woodshed:

MacDougall is this guy. Wow!  That blew up bigger than I expected!  Who says Idle No More is washed up?

Wow x 2!  Wildrose condemns and, essentially, fires Flanagan.  Did INM take down Tom Flanagan?

Wow x 3!  Fired by CBC.

Idle No More Strikes Back!

So Chris Slothouber notes that someone one is mucking with twitter to get that Flanagan video to trend. I think its this fellow, who uploaded the footage.  Interestingly enough, he claims to have a connection to the folks at Idle No More, who have good reason to be unhappy with Mr. Flanagan. In fact, the question that triggered Flanagan's unfortunate response seems to have been a deliberate attempt to catch the man out.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Tom Flanagan On Child Pornography

I'm still trying to decide if this is shocking or not.  To be a bit less cryptic: is he making that "interesting argument" or just presenting it?

Every Man Woman And Child In B.C. Will Receive A Gold Plated Cowboy Hat

At a January meeting with her Alta. counterparts,  B.C. Premier Christy Clark said what's obvious:

 ...[she] bluntly told Ms. Redford that public opinion is against the [Northern Gateway] pipeline in British Columbia – Alberta gets the benefits while B.C. carries the risks of environmental disaster, according to senior officials in B.C.

...and now Alberta pols are scrambling to see how much is in the kitty to pay-off residents of the beautiful Left Coast.  Straight out bribes are not on the table, yet, but the Redford government is apparently considering such options as discount bus tickets to beautiful Lethbridge, and free pelts from the wolves poisoned to save caribou herds threatened by tar-sands developments.  Offering a night out with Ezra for one lucky B.Cer was briefly considered, and First Nations types are still in line for a weekend with the entertaining Tom "just take their fucking land" Flanagan.

A Note To Professor Tom Flanagan

The good professor has taken time off from issuing death threats to lament Calgary City Council's decision to discontinue the fluoridation of city water:

Our politicians’ performance was topped by the usually judicious Calgary Herald editorial board, which attacked our medical school and scientific research in general: “Calgary city council wisely decided not to refer the issue to University of Calgary medical experts who offered to educate them on the benefits of fluoridation. Judging from the public comments by some of those experts, the U of C review likely would have been a predictable reaffirmation of the benefits of fluoridation from the scientific establishment. Calgary aldermen showed they are quite capable, thank you very much, of reviewing the literature already widely available.”

Indeed, medical experts would offer a “predictable reaffirmation” of fluoridation’s benefits, because that’s the almost universal conclusion of more than half a century of scientific research. Yes, too much fluoride can be a bad thing, causing occasional mottling of the teeth, but that undesirable side effect can be controlled by proper dosage. Other than that, the evidence is overwhelming that fluoridation reduces the incidence of cavities.

And I doubt very much that Calgary aldermen, or any other group of politicians, are capable of “reviewing the literature.” It takes years of specialized study to master the scientific basis of modern medicine, to say nothing of research methodologies. How many politicians understand the difference between epidemiology and random clinical trials, or between analysis of variance and multiple regression as statistical ways of controlling for the influence of multiple causal factors?

Well, good on Tom. The discounting of expert opinion by "science-rejecting Simpletons" is something I've complained about endlessly over the years. My only problem? Here's Dr. Flanagan on the Tar Sands:

Economically, this was a huge success story for Canada, Alberta, and the oil industry, but environmental issues loomed ever larger as development proceeded. Traditional concerns over water quality and boreal habitat were joined by worry over anthropogenic global warming, allegedly caused by carbon-rich greenhouse gas emissions. The oil sands produce large amounts of these because so much energy is required to extract bitumen from the earth and convert it into usable fuel. Ever-rising levels of concern over global warming led to many
political attacks on the oil industry in general,2 the Albert oil industry in particular,3 and above all on so-called “dirty oil” produced in the Alberta “tar sands.”4

Allegedly caused? I doubt this statement was made after "reviewing the literature", and I suspect Dr. Flanagan, a student of the political sciences, is himself capable of such a review. Nevertheless, there you have it. Hey Presto! The science is rejected!

And so a word to the professor:

It is entirely unsurprising that the move towards defluoridation should start in Calgary, which is also the epicenter of Canada's climate change denial industry. Because you can't open the floodgates just a little ways. You can't set teh crazy just a little bit free. When you start smearing a particular scientific field, you get mud over the whole edifice. And if Tom Flanagan wants to lay blame for what's happening in Calgary, he shouldn't bother pointing the finger at "influential celebrities" like Jenny McCarthy. He should look in the mirror.

Tom Flanagan On The Census Long-Form

In which he walks back some of his previous criticism of the government's policy, but not really that much:

We need some rational debate, maybe even a government task force, on the proper shape of the census in the electronic age. Statistics Canada still relies on 20th-century technology (mailed questionnaires) as well as 19th-century technology (interviewers at the door) to gather information. How about some 21st-century technology? If we can create an electronic voters list, can we not carry out at least part of the census electronically?

Fine. We do need a rational debate. Even maybe a task force. But until we get all that, can we keep an unemasculated version of the long form? Oh, and lets have that task force look at the cost of census products. How come when I visit U.S. statistics sites I encounter data, but at Statscan I immediately start running into price lists?

Several European countries have abolished the traditional census. They have systems of compulsory registration and personal ID cards that can effectively substitute for the census but are politically unacceptable in North America. Yet, Britain’s coalition government plans to abolish its registry and ID cards immediately, and the census in 2021; at the very least, we should be watching to learn from this experiment.

Yeah. Watch the British experiment closely. They were going to a European style system, but rejected a European style ID card. Plans for the new regime were to have been ratified almost a month ago. But so far...nothing. I'm speculating, but the U.K. coalition may be finding it a bit hard to square that circle.

Flanagan On Human Rights

I didn't intend to write on Tom Flanagan's G&M piece this morning, but Impolitical called me on it. This bit is both the silliest and most cold-hearted part:

In a competitive market, discrimination is costly to the discriminator. An employer who refuses to hire workers because of race, religion or ethnicity restricts his own choices and imposes a disadvantage on his firm. Meanwhile, his competitors gain by being able to hire from a larger pool. The same logic applies to restaurateurs turning away potential customers, or landlords refusing to lease to people of particular categories. (I'll never forget the experience of owning rental property in the recession of the 1980s; I would have rented to Martians if they had showed up with a damage deposit.)

The argument applies no matter how rampant prejudice and discrimination may be. Those who discriminate impose burdens on themselves and confer advantages on their competitors. Competitive markets don't immediately abolish discriminatory practices, but they tend to erode them, not by trying to enlighten bigoted people, but by making discrimination unprofitable.

I should say to start I have lived in a very non-competitive housing market--Toronto in the late 80s, where a land-lord cord charge you $400 a month for a cot next to the furnace--and at the time ran into a mixed race couple, one very pregnant, who could not find a place that would rent to them. I gave them a few phone numbers to try, and wished them luck.

(If I remember correctly, a "balanced" rental market is about 5% vacant. Toronto's current rate is 2.1%, hasn't been competitive in at least 25 years.)

Now, that's just an anecdote, but Flanagan himself is offering nothing but deductions from sterile economic theory. To assume that 1) people make these kinds of decision rationally, or 2) will not routinely make rational or at least calculated decisions on the basis of values other than economic values (religious values, for example,which might entail a disapproval of Martian sexual practices), or 3) can never become wealthy enough to indulge their prejudices... is naive in the extreme.

More generally, this "if we didn't have human rights laws the market would make human rights problems go away" is the same line of nonsense Ezra peddles. I'm surprised Flanagan didn't try to blame it all on the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Cadmania Lives!

James Moore today in the HOC:

“Mr. Cadman was going to run again,” responded Conservative MP James Moore, parliamentary secretary of public works and the government's point person on the contentious file.

“The only offer that was put on the table was the offer, as I said, to rejoin the Conservatives, get re-nominated as a Conservative, and that we would offer him any financial support that was necessary and mandated by Elections Canada – allowed by Elections Canada – to seek re-election.”

What Tom Flanagan said in "Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power":

“The last thing [Cadman] wanted right now was an election. I knew then that we would lose the vote, which we did a couple hours later.”

That's another week's worth of scandal right there.