My son just sent me a link to a story that says the Ontario McGuinty Government has changed its mind and will allow MMA fighting beginning next year. According to Consumer Services Minister Sophia Aggelonitis, regulating MMA is the best way to keep the fighters safe.
Hmm... not to mention the revenue the government will accrue from it and the online gambling it is about to get into as well.
Oh well, bloodsports and gambling may be two effective ways to assuage people should they grow vexed over their increasingly high utility and gasoline bills thanks to the HST, despite the fact that the latter will be applied to these latest questionable and diversionary McGuinty policy decisions.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
How Do We Assess Information?
The other day I had an interesting and spirited discussion with a colleague at the food bank where I volunteer. Initially the conversation revolved around the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the possible loss of the team with City Council's decision to proceed with the West Harbour as the site of the new stadium over the objections of team owner Bob Young.
The discussion then progressed to how we evaluate the information we receive. My position, using two illustrations, was and is as follows: Because whatever personal expertise we may possess is usually very limited in scope, it becomes incumbent upon us to be very much influenced by experts in any given field.
Take, for example, the Conservative Government's decision to abandon the mandatory long census form. To be quite honest, the topic of the census, until the controversy erupted, was of no interest to me. The subject of statistics is like a foreign language to me, and seemingly of no pertinence to my life. However, after the almost universal condemnation of the Harper decision by a wealth of experts, critical thinking demands that I accept as true that it is a very bad decision that should be reversed.
We then went on to talk about, and disagree upon, climate change. Her position was that she wants to decide the truth for herself, through research on the Internet. That may well be a sound approach if she has enough time and the ability to evaluate the sources of her information, something that is very hard for a lay person to do on issues with a high degree of technical information.
Nonetheless, I have already accepted the truth of climate change, not just because of the worldwide evidence of something happening at an unprecedented rate of change, but also because, again, the overwhelming majority of experts in the field say that it is essentially indisputable. I italicized the word experts because a favorite ploy of climate change deniers is to have people whose credentials lie elsewhere to call into question the analyses of the real experts, thus sowing doubt amongst the lay people.
In fact, that is the tack regularly employed by Globe and Mail writer Neil Reynolds who, in his last column on climate change, cited the opinion of some environmental economists to support his thesis, and in a previous piece used the 'expertise' of a Nobel Prize-wining physicist.
Bringing these issues into sharp relief is writer Antony black, who had a column in today's Hamilton Spectator. I urge those of you interested in critical thinking to take a few moments to read it, as the evidence he presents to undermine the climate change deniers is quite interesting. I urge those of you interested in critical thinking to take a few moments to read it, as the evidence he presents to undermine the climate change deniers is quite interesting.
The discussion then progressed to how we evaluate the information we receive. My position, using two illustrations, was and is as follows: Because whatever personal expertise we may possess is usually very limited in scope, it becomes incumbent upon us to be very much influenced by experts in any given field.
Take, for example, the Conservative Government's decision to abandon the mandatory long census form. To be quite honest, the topic of the census, until the controversy erupted, was of no interest to me. The subject of statistics is like a foreign language to me, and seemingly of no pertinence to my life. However, after the almost universal condemnation of the Harper decision by a wealth of experts, critical thinking demands that I accept as true that it is a very bad decision that should be reversed.
We then went on to talk about, and disagree upon, climate change. Her position was that she wants to decide the truth for herself, through research on the Internet. That may well be a sound approach if she has enough time and the ability to evaluate the sources of her information, something that is very hard for a lay person to do on issues with a high degree of technical information.
Nonetheless, I have already accepted the truth of climate change, not just because of the worldwide evidence of something happening at an unprecedented rate of change, but also because, again, the overwhelming majority of experts in the field say that it is essentially indisputable. I italicized the word experts because a favorite ploy of climate change deniers is to have people whose credentials lie elsewhere to call into question the analyses of the real experts, thus sowing doubt amongst the lay people.
In fact, that is the tack regularly employed by Globe and Mail writer Neil Reynolds who, in his last column on climate change, cited the opinion of some environmental economists to support his thesis, and in a previous piece used the 'expertise' of a Nobel Prize-wining physicist.
Bringing these issues into sharp relief is writer Antony black, who had a column in today's Hamilton Spectator. I urge those of you interested in critical thinking to take a few moments to read it, as the evidence he presents to undermine the climate change deniers is quite interesting. I urge those of you interested in critical thinking to take a few moments to read it, as the evidence he presents to undermine the climate change deniers is quite interesting.
No Election in the Offing
As reported in the Globe's Ottawa Notebook, Stephen Harper's former pollster, Dimitri Pantazopoulos, feels no federal election is imminent.
Given the profound timidity shown by the Liberals under Michael Ignatieff's leadership, which I have already written about, that is hardly a startling prediction. The latest indication that the Liberals are 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," is Bob Rae's comments on the wrong-headedness of the Harper Government's decision to end the mandatory long form census. When asked if this could trigger an election, he was, to say the least, non-committal.
As I have said before, the Liberals are going to have to prove with more than cheap words that they are defined by something other than an intense desire to return to power before they can have my vote in the next election.
Given the profound timidity shown by the Liberals under Michael Ignatieff's leadership, which I have already written about, that is hardly a startling prediction. The latest indication that the Liberals are 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," is Bob Rae's comments on the wrong-headedness of the Harper Government's decision to end the mandatory long form census. When asked if this could trigger an election, he was, to say the least, non-committal.
As I have said before, the Liberals are going to have to prove with more than cheap words that they are defined by something other than an intense desire to return to power before they can have my vote in the next election.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Adam Radwanski's Column
In today's Globe, Adam Radwanski offers an interesting perspective on the decision of the McGuinty government to get into online gambling.
I will reproduce a small part of it where he discusses an aspect of it that did not occur to me. The italics are mine:
Assuming Ontario can avoid a fiasco like the one in British Columbia, where the new online casino had to go offline because of privacy breaches, it will lend legitimacy to an industry that until now has been murky. That will lead Ontarians who’ve shied away from online gambling to give it a shot. If some wind up hooked, and take their business elsewhere after getting booted from OLG's site, the government will have inadvertently lured vulnerable people to what it refers to as “the grey market.”
I will reproduce a small part of it where he discusses an aspect of it that did not occur to me. The italics are mine:
Assuming Ontario can avoid a fiasco like the one in British Columbia, where the new online casino had to go offline because of privacy breaches, it will lend legitimacy to an industry that until now has been murky. That will lead Ontarians who’ve shied away from online gambling to give it a shot. If some wind up hooked, and take their business elsewhere after getting booted from OLG's site, the government will have inadvertently lured vulnerable people to what it refers to as “the grey market.”
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A Morally and Financially Bankrupt Provincial Government
Some days, it is almost more than I can do to muster even a modicum of faith in our political system. Confronted as we are on an almost daily basis with evidence of corruption, betrayal of the public trust, and reminders that we, the voters, count only at election time, it is difficult to affix any credibility to the utterances of our 'representatives'. Currently, my ire is particularly directed at the Ontario Provincial Liberals, led by Dalton McGuinty.
My acute disaffection with the Premier began in late June, during the G20 summit. It was only after the summit was over that the Premier revealed that the so-called five-meter fence law allowing police to demand that people show their identities and the contents of their knapsacks did not actually exist. This, despite the fact that Bill Blair, the Toronto Police Chief, was trumpeting its importance since the day before the Summit actually began, and Dalton McGuinty was enthusiastically agreeing with him in the press that such extraordinary measures were necessary to provide an adequate level of security for the delegates.
After it was all over, McGuinty simply said that they “could have done a better job in communication” and facilely dismissed the idea of a public inquiry, despite the fact that he had obviously colluded with the police to deprive citizens of their Charter Rights guaranteeing freedom of movement and association.
My disaffection with him has deepened given the events that transpired over the weekend regarding the site for the Pan Am stadium in Hamilton, which I have already written about.
And today comes the announcement that the Provincial Government is going to move into the lucrative field of on-line gambling, whereby they hope to realize a minimum of $400 million dollars annually, choosing to ignore, despite whatever public-relations gestures that will be forthcoming, the gambling addiction of many Ontarians and willfully exploiting that weakness to enrich government coffers.
So now, in a province that is almost financially bankrupt, we have seen, in at least three different ways, its declaration of moral bankruptcy.
One can only hope that voters will take notice and remember during the next election campaign.
My acute disaffection with the Premier began in late June, during the G20 summit. It was only after the summit was over that the Premier revealed that the so-called five-meter fence law allowing police to demand that people show their identities and the contents of their knapsacks did not actually exist. This, despite the fact that Bill Blair, the Toronto Police Chief, was trumpeting its importance since the day before the Summit actually began, and Dalton McGuinty was enthusiastically agreeing with him in the press that such extraordinary measures were necessary to provide an adequate level of security for the delegates.
After it was all over, McGuinty simply said that they “could have done a better job in communication” and facilely dismissed the idea of a public inquiry, despite the fact that he had obviously colluded with the police to deprive citizens of their Charter Rights guaranteeing freedom of movement and association.
My disaffection with him has deepened given the events that transpired over the weekend regarding the site for the Pan Am stadium in Hamilton, which I have already written about.
And today comes the announcement that the Provincial Government is going to move into the lucrative field of on-line gambling, whereby they hope to realize a minimum of $400 million dollars annually, choosing to ignore, despite whatever public-relations gestures that will be forthcoming, the gambling addiction of many Ontarians and willfully exploiting that weakness to enrich government coffers.
So now, in a province that is almost financially bankrupt, we have seen, in at least three different ways, its declaration of moral bankruptcy.
One can only hope that voters will take notice and remember during the next election campaign.
Jeffrey Simpson's View of the Census Debacle
In today's Globe, Jeffrey Simpson examines the emptiness of the 'reasons' Harper surrogate Tony Clement has given for abandoning the compulsory long census form, concluding that this decision may well be the defining moment in the Harper Conservative Government's fortunes. He concludes that the long census form will eventually return, but Conservative support will not. You can read his column by clicking here.
Munir Sheikh''s Suggestion
Munir Sheikh, the former head of Statistics Canada whose integrity demanded that he resign rather than be a party to the dismantling of meaningful data through the elimination of the mandatory long census form, has an article on the op-ed page of today's Globe and Mail.
The article's well-reasoned nature guarantees that it will be ignored by the Harper Government.
The article's well-reasoned nature guarantees that it will be ignored by the Harper Government.
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