william.scherk

PDS and others (including Canuckistani me) have tried to explain to you what is wrong with your suggestion. PDS is most eloquent: this is the duly-elected President. If he has violated his oath, he can be impeached and removed from office. Using 'force' to accomplish removal from office is abhorrent to most US citizens (save the crazies) -- it is also criminal. For a Canucki to urge 'force' is seen, rightly, as both stupid and insulting. Don't you get this, Jerry? Why not just say, "I understand your objections" and move on to your next stupid idea? -- but let's say you do not care one whit what US citizens on this site think about your suggestion. Fine. But the owner of this site has expressly told you this is a red line for him. Please try again to understand the objections, the policy of our host, and on this subject, please STFU. Look at it this way, Jerry. People go to jail for what you came close to suggesting someone else do -- making a case for an extra-judicial armed 'take out.' -- if you want to push this line any further, do it ON YOUR OWN DIME and ON YOUR OWN PROPERTY. Fire up the walker, put on your stair-helmet, and await CSIS.

You might have learned by now not to trust any source that refers to skeptics regarding Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change as "deniers." 'Cause anyone who talks that way has definitely got something besides science on his mind. I don't know. This just instructs me that Bill Butler (the author of the page I linked to and excerpted) is not-to-be-trusted and that he definitely has something other than science on his mind, according to your rule of thumb. But I don't really get it. What is the point of avoiding what Bill Butler writes about Robinson? Because he uses the words 'denial' and 'liars' to refer to such as Monckton and Robinson? If I follow this reasoning, when someone like Robinson decries liars and fraud and swindles, we should do what in turn? Avoid? Trust? Know they got something on the mind besides science? Surely heated rhetoric (or fighting words) can be discounted, scraped away, and the arguments laid bare. If we avoided the arguments of anyone who charges "Denial" against the No-Anthropogenic-Warming adherent, how would we otherwise examine arguments? I don't know what your attitude towards Robinson is (beyond unmentioned 'quirks') ... whether you accept his effusions on global warming or not. The notes on Robinson were a counter to Brant's one-line link, and to the notion that an Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine is an authority on the subject at hand. It is disturbing to me that attention to a (real or imagined) threat of global temperature increases is divvied up on ideological (left/right) grounds or on wishful thinking/philosophical grounds. I cannot think of one Objectivist who 'believes' in human-augmented global warming, who publishes, who is accorded a measure of respect. But these issues are not about to be settled on OL. I have never managed to get a basic discussion enjoined (I usually plug Weart's Discovery of Global Warming -- to no avail. I cannot get anyone here to read and/or comment on it). In the interest of opening up a new line of discussion, here is my favourite energy story of the week, my favourite bit of applied science. Kind of fun and kind of freaky: School Girls Invent Urine Powered Generator: Pee In - Electricity Out

I agree with the broad-strokes here, in that 'the abortion thing' and 'crap like that' being a drag on Republican chances of advancement. This is the pure awful demographics of O'Reilly's white man elite. Surely you can take every nuts-for-gawd yahoo and every Uterus Patrol fanatic, and every Tea Party '76er, and every family-with-a-bunker, and every hardcore Mormon, and all the uptight about sin Catholic papists. You can do all this, gather all these votes under the Republican tent, add in a certain amount of purely economic voters who identify with 'the party of business,' but you will fall short of a majority. This is the challenge for a Republican party. What do you actually do about present feeble support among 'minorities'? Among the majority of Americans who do not want officialized government reproduction monitors, it just does not take. Romney (or advisors) were smart enough to blandify his public utterances on contentious issues late in the campaign. He turned to fudgy statements about women, fatuous statements about 'the son of Mexican immigrants,' murky statements about 'taking care of needy' ... but it did not take. Mourdock lost his Senate bid, as did Todd Akin. The lady electorate thought it best to return Claire McCaskill by a thumping majority of 55%. Rape commentary by the whacked religious Republicans cost two Senate seats. Whatever the particular reasons, the Senate also gained Elizabeth Warren, lying 'half-breed', and another Democratic dragon-lady in the person of the first openly gay Senator, Tammy Baldwin. I did argue some time ago (around the time of the Rush-Slut hearings) that the evangelical Transvaginal Express Republican policies were an electoral problem. If the GOP could not knock the 55%-Maoist tendency among women, and remove the taint of I-will-legislate-your-innards-for-Jayzuss from its platform, then it would be a problem. I can't remember how my reasoning was disposed of ... I can only stress to my disappointed friends here that America is Great. Big, rich, powerful, dynamic, productive, inventive, magnetically attractive, flush with energy and ability and reach. I have no fear of America falling into the toilet. Not in four years, not in forty. I hope as always for a little more realism and a stronger sense of proportion. In a cartoon world of Mao and Freedomfighters, the game seems over and the pits of horror gaping. Just take a break from alarmist analysts for a week or so, and breathe, breathe.

Headline news in Canada for Washington state's ballot initiative 502: B.C. marijuana activists cheer Washington pot vote In Canada, the Harper government quietly celebrated the coming into force of one of its crime bills, the one that establishes mandatory minimum sentences on marijuana offences. This is not a popular move in BC, where four former solicitor-generals told the feds it was the wrong way to go. PM Harper issued a terse message from the PMO referring to the south of the border initiatives: "Other jurisdictions are free to do as they please. This government will not be legalizing marijuana." Colorado joins Washington in decriminalizing marijuana for personal use. The parameters of the Washington law are striking. BC already has 'medical' dispensaries, a tolerated bong culture, and a lesser chance of being charged and convicted on pot offences than in other provinces. It looks like a number of us BCers will be looking with interest and envy at our neighbour's experiment. Moochers, hoochers and 'businessmen' ...

Sadly, no, Jerry. I mean, a 'case' can be made for forceful means to remove him from office short of a visit from DHS/SS or CSIS, but that case would be pretty general, like "I think you guys should take Obama out by force on the ground mumble mumble." But otherwise yeah, a coup could work, with a plan. A secret plan, hint hint.

What you, and many others, including Americans, fail to realize is that those layers of administration and control do, in large part, originate with the state. It is a point worth noting, Deanna, that the pay-and-procedure controls on medical practice in the USA is all (or mostly) mandated by an arm of government. What I meant to point out is the sheer mass of it, and its complication in comparison to north of the border. If you do not know the Canadian provincial systems, you may not know what a difference I mean. Although 'single payer' is too simplistic to describe the entire coast to coast framework of pay-and-procedure, you can well imagine if there was for the vast majority of your patients no direct cost accrued aside from premiums. They paid (their premiums) and now they are 'in' the single system. The accounting does not become Byzantium. There are no special separate levels of hell for the poor (Medicaid) or old (Medicare) or broken (the nutters/disabled). None of these extra administrative hobbles on American practice are in play. No HMOs dickering. Fewer middlemen. Long time lurkers are always welcome to jump in the waters! You live in a beautiful, cultured part of the world (and with your Acadian admixture, a bit of Canadien in your pot). I hope we hear more from you. As Michael says, Hear hear.

Dupe, d'oh!

I mentioned litigation in Ohio over the election. One kerfuffle is over a software patch installed off the books that 'converts' election totals in XML data format into CSV format (comma separated values). Just a minor fix that helps the state-level reporting (which releases official totals) receive cleanly formatted results into their system. The patch is not a stand-alone conversion programme (off the shelf XML to CSV), but applied at county level, so far in 39 counties. This was first reported on October 31 under the headline "Will "experimental" software patches affect the Ohio vote?" This story has since moved on, but the basic bone-in-the-throat quality remains. The leftish hyena media has of course seized on it at the fringes, but we should expect a certain amount of trouble to emerge tonight in Ohio, with a whiff of partisan manipulation of the voting machinery. Dead bad news for a quick clean election if there is the least bit of chicanery from the state election honcho. This is the state that mailed out ballot order forms to the entire electorate, in a new bit of finesse on absentee balloting procedure. The state mailed back ballots to those requesting them. Then some portion of those ballots were mailed back. At the polling places, it will be discovered that you were mailed a ballot. What did you do with it? Hmmm. Okay, you can vote provisionally, and they will wait till later in the October (mail-in deadline) to count those late-comers stamped November 6th. Considering the numbers at stake, any result other than a slam by either candidate will get mushy fast, at least in the media. Mushy numbers in state election totals are not a good thing, if the vote is close and the number of held-back and latecomer votes could be decisive, then it could be mush to the horizon. So I hope for fast breaking totals in Ohio one way or the other (and if chicanery is concealed, oh well). That Maoist revolutionary rag Salon has weighed in. I don't know how to rate the cleverness of the Republican state election honcho. Was he too clever by a bit? Was he trying to fudge up any part of the procedure, or was he just stupid and partisan?.

Your earlier prediction, Adam, was 325 for Magic Gonch to 196 for the Maoist Revolution ( and here is one example of how those numbers add up): I see a much closer race now, and one that may not be known this evening. Here is my present guess, more or less the same as my last guess: For the House, the party of Mao will gain 201, and Magicpants 244. For the Senate, the split will go Mao 52 seats and Magicpants 48. ________________ I will be keeping my eye open to exit-polls from Virginia and then Ohio. Ohio's count may be snarled in litigation if there are a lot of automatic recounts. Because of varied state regimes for 'provisional balloting' (where many more mailouts for mail-in votes were sent than which will be voted by mail, leading to counting delays as provisional ballots are aligned with today's in-person totals), it might not be apparent at the end of the night in Ohio just who will take it. In popular votes, I suspect that the final results will give the edge to Obama, in the range of Mao:50. Gonch:48. I see no breakthrough for any third-party candidate. What times does the party start here, anyway? -- I will start reporting my impressions once Virginia and Ohio close. I think if Mutton cannot take Colorado and Ohio and Florida (all three), there is not much chance of him getting past 270. As for the Post-Mao apocalypse, and the economic nose-dive, and for riots and civil war and stock crashg, FEMA camps, bunkers and exodus to Canada, I don't see anything major happening.

You first.

Yeabut. I doubt you did any verifying of your statement. I can believe that the delivery of medical services is crimped (except by law of essential services), with the biggest hit of productivity on non-emergency surgery. Most surgeries carry risk, an actual measured rate of death per 1000 surgeries. People die getting knee or hip replacement. Just going in the hospital contains a heightened risk of infection, small but significant. If fewer surgeries are attempted then the number of surgical deaths declines. Doctors have struck in such places as Israel and Los Angeles and Finland. What do the records show, Jerry, and what are the conclusions we may draw? The most memorable doctor's strike in Canadian history was in 1962, on the occasion of socialized medicine being imposed in Saskatchewan. See Wikipedia for a potted history. There was one of those dirty Canadian 'compromises' and the strike failed to overturn the new regime. I don't doubt that many American doctors feel menaced. Your system seems immensely complicated and restrictive and redundant to Canucki eyes. It is not that you have a 'government' to deal with in healthcare, it is the ramifications of layers of administration and control other-than-state, from HMOs to a horde of insurance carriers, all with a heavy overseer role, hedging and binding the actual working life of a doctor. Up here in the hellhole, certainly doctors have the nightmare of single-payer administration, but they do not need to deal with an HMO or any of the animals from the swamp of the American system.

I might have spoken too soon. Speaking of rankings and measures, America has apparently fallen out of the top ten nations of the Prosperity Index recreational hockey league standings. From the vile socialist rag Digital Journal: Okay, Nunavut has no roads. One third of its people (10,000) don't speak anything but an Inuit tongue. The Northwest Passage is getting ready. They like mining, but you have to deal with the local government (of the 30,000). As big as Greenland but fewer roads than Fire Island. How do you think they get their fuel in? Mining is good, diamonds and gold are worth it. Bring your own town, kind of. We have tax breaks, but no roads. Dennis, I didn't mention the way the feds interfere in Nunavut. They fund all these unsavoury measures like business development banks and one-stop business portals and joint-venture support and lots of local training and education. And media. Heck, the feds guaranteed and delivered high-speed internet (via satellite) to all these places. Okay, there is a little bit of socialism, but just a small amount, just enough to have let the Inuit survive up there in those long centuries before gold and diamonds and arctic tourists. A Galtian kind of socialism, in a way, those ancient frozen Inuit days. You know how I can say that, Dennis? Because according to your rule of thumb, nice weather predicts Maoism. But the thoroughly Maoist nations of the top ten are on average freezing fucking cold compared to the US of A. Which makes me question their Maoishness or the usefulness of your barometer. You want freedom? Where else can you ride your snowmobile into next week and no stop signs? And guess where this beautiful lady is from? Hint: Her name is Susan Aglukark and she is four feet twelve, and this was number one on the country charts, who knows why.

Hearts with you, Brant.

Robert, I used HTML in my post, which formatting does not always transmute.

I still don't get the word qua in all its uses. I could not even interpret the topic question at first -- except to recast it in cruder terms: Do Naturalists depict individuals in the character or capacity of: groups or Do Naturalists depict groups in the character or capacity of individuals? Still stumped. Naturalists first I associate with the biological/geological sciences, stout and doughty sorts who stalk the cliffs, meadows and wastelands for 'specimens.' A Naturalist like Charles Darwin, for example, stalked his world for beetles when young, and did terrible things to them, pinning them and classifying them. Later, he did more specimen and note taking, and later still, published his work as a contribution to the science of the day. So, if that isn't what the OT means, I go back. Naturalists in art, perhaps? Naturalists in writing, in books? Well, that lets Darwin back in, but maybe we mean only fiction. In which case a Naturalist would maybe try for a certain objective assessment and detachment from the story and its characters. The Wizard of Oz series are not naturalistic, whereas Jules Verne was? I don't know. Henry James was naturalistic or realist or fabulist or romantic or what? But hey, let's grab an example. How about some author from a time past, since I cannot think of any Naturalist who speaks large today, save for vexed 'Darwinists'/atheists like Dawkins, but they are out for literature, for fiction. How about a beetle collector like Zola? How about Tom Wolfe? How about Truman Capote? I don't have a clue of who should be in my focus group of Naturalists. Anyway, now Angela has wrecked it with her note about that danged Realism. I was thinking that a 'naturalist' like Darwin must have been a hard-headed 'realist' of some kind, since he was looking for beetles and iguanas and barnacles and not fairies in the garden. And if his realism portended a 'tell it like it is' hard-boiled detective approach to incremental events in immensities of time, I do not think he would be telling anything but a realistic story, of what could be demonstrated, a tale throbbing with the engine of natural selection and vast variety commingled and hungry. So, Zola, with his Darwinism imbibed, could imagine a world like the world of evolution, of struggle, of heredity, of raw humanity oft untutored, of bargemen and underlings and people without shoes. They were real enough, they may even have been a 'natural' part of a poorer time. So, if Zola looked at the poor scuttling beetles of humanity under his scrutiny, pinned to his board, given identity, is he telling a story of individual scuttlers -- or of hordes, classes, a 'type' of beetle that swarms inside the walls? I don't know. I figure he must have concentrated on a least a few individual specimens, even when he was having them act as an Everybeetle. I do get the impression that (like strict genetic determinists of yore), a certain fatedness suffuses a Naturalist tale. If man has savage inborn tendencies, and if the universe contains no gods to care for him, then would not his formed nature explicitly determine his future? I don't think so, not to the nth degree, as human like other willful brutes will push obstacles aside, with his mind and his machines as much as his own shoulder, but I can see a cruder kind of Naturalist narrative going down that path. Can a naturalist cast several scuttlers individual enough to tell a deeper narrative of Humankind in the world? So, individual cast in group terms, or groups cast in individual terms? I say, tentatively, both. Why not? I bet nouveau Naturalists work both sides of the street. Now why doesn't the original poster climb back on the stage and give us his musings?

Anyway, me and the other Maoist revolutionary from Canada, Carol, will be heading the Marxist contingent at the after-election party. We hope to keep our distance from the Stalinists and the Hitlerites and the Francoists and the Mullacrats, but after a few drinks it all gets a bit murky. May the Americans not riot in the streets, Maoist remaining in the White House or not. May New Jersey and New York get their shit together after Sandy's blow. May your economy prosper. May your plans to flee to north to freedom remain in the bunker unsealed. To the ramparts, to the keyboards, to the couches!

Dennis, the point being that using polar measurements gives only digital readout. There are only two 'states'. One is an all-purpose bad (Maoist Hilter Mullah yadda) and the other sunny meadows. We only get two categories. And so half the world is swept into one category on faulty premises. I'm saying you can indeed measure a level of devotion to harsh ideological autocracies and the active revolutionary movements in the world that advocate for it. By this measure, Breivik moves under the same tent as a Nusra Front suicide bomber. As with Pol Pot, etc, Hitler, Ceaucescu, Franco-ist Spain, neo-fascists in Europe, jihadis elsewhere as well as regimes such as in Belarus and North Korea. A pole of evil. At the other end butterflies, meadows, freedom, running water and electricity. Where do I fit there, Dennis, given my avowals here? What measure of fiendishness do I share with the President, do you think, along that measure of brutal oppression?

As words have meanings, President Obama is no more a Maoist revolutionary with Islamo-fascist ties than Dennis L. May is a crypto-nazi with neo-fascist ties. Yes. Yes, yes and yes. I lost sight of what Dennis was arguing for, a full-thrusters exaggeration run on Maoist. It's similar to what Adam does when he denotes Obama as a Marxist. What are the concepts in play, besides Marxist and Maoist revolutionary? What is being measured here in those two distinct terms? I say Leftishness, to coin a word. There is thus a measurement available. Over-riding measurement is the very antipode under examination, Right/Left. Let's find an undeniable manifestation of Maoist revolutionary. The Moros in the Philippines and the Maoists of Nepal. Let's find a Marxist liberation force closer to home. Columbia. So, what do they have in common? Avowed marxism (Mao brand) and violent revolutionary goals and actions. An enemy armed and fighting against them. What else? Oh yeah, in the larger sense, 'leftism.' Okay, haul out the "Left" ruler. Put the Moro and the Colombians and the Nepalism maniacs under the mark way over to the left of the ruler. Now place the other end of the ruler along the 'left' axis. Look down in the corner to Whistler's Mother (leftish beeyotch as she was) and swing the ruler around to put her at the 'right' end. If this is the first time measuring something, that's okay. You are doing good. Now, stretch out the ruler further down in the corner to Hitler. And mark that off as Right. Now run the tape measure between Stalin and Hitler, mark down the length and then mark down the length of half that length. This is your radius. Now, cut a length of string with to that length and nail down one end to the Moros on your chart. Tie a pencil to the other end of the string, and then draw the half-circle with the radius line. Step back. You're done, Dennis! Now the final check. Check a few random data points, like, oh, Carol and William. Are they on the side of Hitler or on the side of Maoist revolutionaries? That's right! By your own careful checking of reality, both Carol and William and 90-odd percent of Canadians are Maoist Revolutionaries. And you are a Nazi. That's what Michael Marotta was trying to point out to you, Dennis. It's a lesson Adam still struggles with, but we know you are smart enough to get it.

The Innocence of Earth Tony had been remembering a time "when Americans had the most amazing innocence," and misses that time. This raises some difficulties. Collectivizing words that have multiple meanings and assigning them to large groups is asking for cognitive error. Possible errors include the basics (Type One/Type Two errors) and the knock-on fallacies (false analogies). Here's the problem from another angle: one can put forward a dominant connotation of the word as representative. We can guess Tony's intended meaning by context and by subsequent explanation. We can lay out clearly how assigning Good to a class of things can obscure an underlying beggaring of the larger question. The word: in·no·cence/ˈinəsəns/ Noun: The state, quality, or fact of being innocent of a crime or offense. Lack of guile or corruption; purity. Synonyms: purity - naivety - simplicity - guiltlessness More info »Wikipedia - Dictionary.com - Answers.com - Merriam-Webster This is a strong word, with almost completely positive connotations: one can add many more synonyms to one's personal understanding of the concept, ramifications of innocence, aspects of innocence -- favourite flavours of the word. Guilelessness, openness, vulnerability, beauty, youth, incorruptibility and so on. So we can guess what wistful nostalgia Tony feels for this extended sense of innocence. When this sense of innocence is applied to an individual, a child or youth, I think we can feel that kinship catch in the throat, looking on a young person yet free of having committed any painful offense against another; we can even have in mind a rather unlikely angelic being, who never pushed a sibling, who never bit another, who never raged, never lashed out unfairly. These are trifles when we look upon our own treasured ideal image. Strong feelings attached to a concept, enough to pang in remembrace of this state of innocence. This individual has not committed any crime. Of course, does the full power of the concept transfer to a collective of people? Let's think about it. Can we say there was a time when New York was innocent, when Antigua was innocent, when China was innocent, when Indonesia was innocent, when Europe was innocent, when Johannesburg and Buenos Aires, the Bowery, Chinatown and Harlem were innocent? Can we `reassign`the emotional valence to a larger collective at any scale -- neighbourhood, city, region, state, province, territory, nation and hemisphere? When particular measurements are omitted, does the meaning accrue to every corner of the collective, or only in a summary sense, an average? Do we need to maintain a sense of scale between an individual and a grouping of individuals, and retain our perception of the dimension between one and many? If a nation can have had an Age of Innocence, can a continent or a planet? If so, what use is nostalgia for such an era, what is its fruit beside regret and painful memories of yore? Anyhow, though Tony has moved on, I think the metaphor of an innocent America lingers on in his heart and mind, an ideal Happy Days of a nation. If not a mere metaphor, I could probably reason out for myself the epoch or historical moment that has passed. Before I go on, I would like to know more about perceptions of that time that Tony treasures. Perhaps I too treasure that moment, that collective span of innocence. Maybe Mark too can feel what Tony feels, and try to understand. In the meantime, I will go searching my emotional memory banks for that time perceived when I looked at my country with that same fine regard and appreciation: innocent Canada, young innocent Canada. When would that be? I will report back on my intropection, and maybe even look up bambysham, speaking of disparaging epithets.

I hadn't gandered at the video forked up by our only Doctor, thinking that lots of people look like an off-duty Santa. But I did look at it just now because Doctor has such piquant tastes in oddities. The mystery had a tang of 'research' to me, which is always a thrill, heading out on information patrol, hoping to get something good in my hunting bag to bring back to the fire here. But before I tell you about that, here's the trap lines I thought I was going to run: I thought for sure Randi could have nattered about Rand somewhere somehow, though I did not recall that he ever sassed anyone outside his flim-flam investigations, nor did I recall 'right/left' political utterances. I didn't think that was his beat. My hunch was that If he met Rand in the greenroom at NBC or was at least respectful of her as a phenomenon, he would be gracious then and since. She was bigtime enough to be on Carson and so was he. Was there ever a reason for him to drip scorn on her or her opinions (consider his friendship across the rainbow of small s modern skeptics (among them some Objectivish)? How does a man command respect from many under the big tent of Reason -- snarking about Rand? Maybe not. Then I wondered at his jovial tone. Would he compromise in any way his presumed humanism or skepticism by joining colleagues Schermer or Teller in a walk-on? Would it not be fun? Hmmm. In my wildest imaginings I saw a secret encounter, a passionate discussion in Burbank, after a Carson show. She wanted a magician who was not a mystic, he went on. 'I might be gay as a boot, but this lady was turning on my valuations system. When she said to me, "I really like your schtick, Raaaandi," with that sexy gravel voice, that deep penetrating gaze, I suggested we take the time to talk more. And talk more we did. We talked and talked and talked all through a sweaty sundown in Burbank. She was not a woman to me, she was Man, a man with a mind hard and strong, and I too became Man. As we thrust and slid, we declaimed to each other hoarsely, insistently. We hectored each other about Reason until our united argument reached its climax. I never told Luigi or anyone else, having pledged to her I would keep our secret until I died.' I digress. But seriously folks, on further thought I then remembered that we could do a face comparison from a still, and try to gain that blush of recognition that lets us tell one Santa from another. And then I sent a tweet to @jref asking if. I really hope it was him. With both in the picture, do you doubt your senses or your perceptions or your analytical procedures? With more pixels, one could check the eyebrows, do point to point ratio analysis and run a morph on the two images. But to hell with these trifles. I have no meat in my bag yet, so I will head back out.

"because of Sandy i could not fly into NYC" was what he wrote.

William, Damn you! I come pre-damned, dang it. I doubt the videos will be expunged (if they are derived from open-access Youtube videos), but it seems clear the other full-text PDFs will be -- and most certainly if any ARI folks watch these threads closely. Without giving the game away (and bringing on a straightforward suit for copyright violation), check out the full book list here.

Proximity only.

No news from Gotham Tea Party on their booze-up with Pam and Yaron, whether cancelled or not. Pam Geller's site says f/a about it (though she does have a decent set of New York inundation photos). I sent a Twitter query to the Gothamites to see if the knees-up had been cancelled or rescheduled or whatever. No reply yet, but they are most certainly angry with the New Jersy governor! Here is a sample of their odd whining and snarling in re Sandy: I got word back from Yaron Brook via Twitter that he had not been able to attend the Gotham Tea Party event. He is going to be in the Carolinas shortly, it seems, appearing at Clemson. I wonder if our Robert Campbell will be an attendant: Date: Wednesday, November 7th, 2012 Time: 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Place: Self Auditorium in the Strom Thurmond Institute on the Clemson University campus.

Why? So they can be as frightened as you are, in fear of a 'revolt of minorities'? What the heck do you mean by minorities? Commies, Arabs, Muslims, Universalists, Blacks, Latinos, Jews, Seventh Day Adventists, Hmong, Ukrainians ... or just the horrible Them? This is over-the-top, and bears little relation to reality, reality as accurate depictions of difference between states north and south of the 49th parallel. Case in point: Canada does near 100% government housing and control of fuels in extreme rural areas. There is a grain of truth in the first part. If one allows 'extreme rural areas' to describe those areas of very low population density (in Canada)**, then a case can be made for federal housing subsidies (and Indian Act provisions) in those areas where the settlements correspond to what we call 'reserves' and you call 'reservations.' In a place like far northern BC, for example, the primary residential settlements outside towns are often either resource settlements or native (first nations) settlements. In the case of reserves, fundamental law dating from the earliest treaties of the British Crown make the subsistence of the native populations the responsibility of the state (the present Crown). Now, there are differences between the domestic nation legal regime covering 'first nations' in the US, and that north of the border (except in BC, where modern-day treaties have been struck, most notably with the Nisga'a), in most measures they are absolutely similar. In other words, whether the 'extreme' rurality of Alaska or the the same in Navajo lands, the same regime applies. There is nothing particularly odd about state subventions of housing. If Dennis can point out a stark difference, I will be happy to correct my take on evidence. On the second part of his assertions, that extreme rural areas have total control of fuel, I don't know what he means. I will ask though -- in comparable areas of extreme rurality between both countries -- let's say Alaska and Canada's arctic regions, what does 'total control of fuel' mean? What does Dennis imagine is the difference in regulation in extreme rural (or wilderness areas)? More pertinent, what is the regime that he espies in Canada -- what are the main features and how do they contrast with the US experience? (Consider only the three touted, planned and in process heavy bitumen pipelines under review: what is the difference between Canucki and Yankee regulatory/environmental developments?) This is freaking hilarious. If Dennis had a fuller grasp of geography, he would see that his depiction of the potential in 'extreme rural areas' for business is far, far off the mark. I never think of the USA or Canada 'kicking each other's ass' except in friendly, cousinly, sportive ways (hockey). Since you do not specify the areas of ass-kicking, we will have to leave discussion of the the details for another time. In the interest of bringing that time closer, do you believe, Dennis, that corporate taxes are lower/higher across the border? Are education achievement scores tilted this way or another. Is per-capita business investment more or less? Is business regulation (or the ease of establishing a business) smoother south or smoother north? I am not a nationalist in any save a murky mythic way, and so I do no happy dance when America moves down the rankings of advanced economies in a few measures, but I do have to correct impressions formed by pre-existing bias and not in fact. Please share the information and statistics that lead you to such an odd take on the Canucki economy and state, Dennis. If they do not support your untested impressions, perhaps you will revise your prejudices. _________________ ** to help out in charting differences across the border, here is a population density graphic of western Canada followed by a USA map. If you click the first image, you will be taken to the page it is taken from and the national map. Similar graphical representations of USA densities can be found here and here.