Twitter irritants and political certainties

— 04.24.2017 07:44 AM

So, I opined on Twitter that the neo-Nazi Le Pen cannot win in the next round of the French residential elections. It’s a widely-held view; the odds are decidedly against the Trump-favoured fascists in the next round.

That single tweet elicited this response from an Ottawa actor (who, tellingly, is a New Democrat):


So, I found that rather irritating, because it fell into one of the categories of Twitter things that are rather irritating to me:

  1. People who ask me to do their research, instead of doing their own damn research.  Also, rhetorical tweets.
  2. Passive-aggressive tweets.
  3. People who tweet hate, naturally.
  4. Humourless, pious people who are online hall monitors, perpetually tsk-tsking everyone else, and acting like God made them the arbiter of all that is morally/ethically/politically correct.
  5. People who (like Sean, above) who cling to the (now popular) view that nothing is knowable.

In politics, you hear from the Not Knowable People all the time.  They’re like the Pharisees of the modern age.  To wit: you guys all said Kathleen Wynne wouldn’t win in 2014, but she did! You guys all said Donald Trump wouldn’t win in 2016, but he did!  Ha!

[Pithy responses, respectively:  The Ontario Libs didn’t win so much as the Ontario PCs lost.  There’s a difference, idiot.  And: Trump didn’t win.  He cheated in the electoral college, with the help of Russia and thousands of hackers, and Hillary got three million more votes than he did, which should count for something in a sane universe.]

This crew – this “nothing is knowable anymore” crew – drive me bananas.  Like the Pharisees, mediocrity is their medium.  Beige is their colour, and tapioca is their manna. They never take any risks, they never venture a strong opinion, and they are therefore never shown to be wrong about anything.  Like J. Alfred Prufrock, they doubt everything and know nothing.

As you might have gleaned over the past 15 years or so, the author of this web site is not shy about offering an opinion every so often.  He – and I know him quite well, so trust me – likes people who are colourful and creative and who take risks.  He despises Prufrock-like bureaucrats.  Dare I eat a peach?

I do, I do.  I dare. I’m going to keep daring to eat peaches, bushels of ’em, until I am booted off this mortal coil.  As my journalism prof Roger Bird said to me in response to a post a few days ago:  “You were a part of the continuing reward of teaching in the School of Journalism. It took a very short time for me to recognize stars soon after they walked through the door. You were among them of course. Beyond that, you were a shit disturber. My inner rule for such was, don’t get in their way. Clearly I followed the rule and you went on to do much good in the world.”

I will keep Roger’s note around until I croak.  It is a wonderful and needed shield against the Know-Nothings on Twitter. Meanwhile, you Twitter people who are lazy – or who hate, or who are too clever by half, or who are pious, or who say nothing is knowable?

You irritate us, but you won’t ever beat us.

 

 


Comments (13)

Twitter pen pals

— 04.22.2017 03:41 PM

So, Chelsea Clinton tweeted this cool thing, which I retweeted:



Which elicited this reaponse from my pal Peggy Blair:



Which produced this, on which I was copied. Pretty cool!



Comments (6)

Trump calls Canada a “disgrace”

— 04.21.2017 09:57 AM

Here. Good thing we’ve been sucking up to him and his kids, eh? Yep.  Sure is working.

President Donald Trump has called protectionist trade measures by the Canadian government “a disgrace.”

“Canada, what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers, it’s a disgrace,” Mr Trump said on Thursday in the Oval Office.

The statement was part of larger comments on American trade deals that Mr Trump made while signing an executive order on steel imports.

“We’re not going to let Canada take advantage [of the U.S.],” Trump told the group of reporters, claiming Canadian policies had hurt US timber and lumber jobs as well.

The claims echo sentiments Mr Trump expressed this week in Wisconsin, addressing employees of Snap-on Tools at a signing for the “Buy American and Hire American” Executive order.

“In Canada, some very unfair things have happened to our dairy farmers and others, and we’re going to strategy working on that,” Mr Trump said in prepared remarks. He called the current arrangement a “one-sided deal,” and vowed to “work on it immediately.”


Comments (24)

Metro: BC NDP leader “mansplains,” “interrupts repeatedly,” “aggressive” (UPDATED)

— 04.21.2017 09:49 AM

Here.  Calm down, John.

The B.C. Liberals’ official Twitter feed, meanwhile, referenced a hashtag gaining steam on the social media platfom based on Clark asking Horgan to “calm down”: “#CalmDownJohn: reaction from the 1st #bclexn17 leader’s debate,” the party stated.

Central Saanich Coun. Niall Paltiel‏ remarked that, “It looks like #CalmDownJohn is trending after (Horgan)’s outburst during the NEWS1130 leaders debate!”

As far away as Ontario, former federal Liberal Party strategist and pundit Warren Kinsella continued to circulate the “sexism” allegations against Horgan, tweeting: “B.C.’s NDP leader is a Trump-like sexist jerk,” later adding Horgan “reveals self to be sexist, insulting, condescending creep.”

In remarks to reporter after the 90-minute debate moderated by veteran broadcaster Bill Good ended, Clark said Horgan’s aggressive, interruption-heavy style matched his approach in the Legislature as leader of the Official Opposition…

UPDATE:  Palmer in the National Post isn’t impressed either:



Comments (1)

Putin is the enemy

— 04.21.2017 06:57 AM

And anyone allied with Russia, a new fascist state, is an enemy of democracy. 



Comments (4)

The BC NDP’s bad week

— 04.20.2017 04:03 PM

First came John Horgan leering at Christy Clark in the first B.C. Campaign 2017 debate: “I’ll watch you for a while. I know you like that.”

That leering, creepy, condescending remark is a Kim Campbell Week One Level disaster, folks. Horgan — sounding rather like Groper-in-Chief Donald Trump — is going to be hearing about that one for a long, long time.

And then came the B.C. NDP economic plan. Ouch.

A bit of history, first.

“The trouble with socialists,” Tommy Douglas once said, and he would know, “is that they let their bleeding hearts go to their bloody heads.”

Douglas, of course, was and is the patron saint of Canada’s New Democrats, and rightly so. He was widely admired. He wasn’t perfect, of course, and no politician ever is. But Tommy Douglas knew something about budgeting.

For example: did you know that, during his 17 years as Saskatchewan premier, Douglas never ran a deficit? It’s true. Not once. And, during all of that time, Douglas would also routinely dedicate 10 per cent of government revenues to paying down the debt. Douglas felt that too much debt — financial holes, in effect — put social programs and government services in peril.

Tommy Douglas isn’t still around to comment on the platform of B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan, of course. But if he was, one suspects that he wouldn’t be terribly impressed. Douglas might even be unhappy to hear about the $6.5-billion hole at the centre of the B.C. NDP’s plan for governing.

No exaggeration: $6.5 billion.

The yawning, gaping hole alleged to be at the centre of the B.C. NDP’s platform was detailed this week by the governing B.C. Liberals — who, love ’em or hate ’em, are the architects of five balanced budgets and oversee the strongest economy in Canada. The Dipper Hole is apparently the product of an analysis of more than four fiscal years. In sum, the B.C. Liberal number-crunchers calculated there were 14 serious errors in the NDP’s math — along with a failure to account for interest costs on increased spending levels.

The improperly costed promises relate to freezing a variety of interest rates, promises made to postsecondary students, and the provincial Medical Services Plan.

The $6.5-billion mistake, it should be noted, does not include assumptions the B.C. NDP made about revenue assumptions or another three dozen or so uncosted promises. The Liberals also left out of their analysis the province’s credit rating. But they still came up with that astonishing $6.5-billion figure.

That sort of thing happens a lot in B.C. We’ve all seen this movie before.

So what, one might say. An election is underway in British Columbia, and it’s a tight one. The B.C. Liberals aren’t ever going to say nice things about the B.C. NDP, and vice-versa.

What is noteworthy, then — what suggests the B.C. Liberals are highly confident about the $6.5-billion figure — is threefold. One, it is a simply gargantuan number. It is hard to imagine any sensible political party making such a claim without verifying it, re-verifying it, many times over. Two, the B.C. Liberals have retained two respected economists, Scott Clark and Peter Devries, to do a further review. They wouldn’t have done that if they didn’t have faith in their analysis.

Thirdly, there’s precedent. In focus groups conducted from sea to sea to sea, since time immemorial, voters will always express doubt about the ability of New Democrats to balance budgets and add up columns of figures.

And as political historians will note, that sort of thing happens a lot in B.C. We’ve all seen this movie before.

In 2013, for instance, the B.C. NDP actually investigated itself as it tried to understand why it had lost an election that had seen them as many as 20 points ahead of their main rivals. A big part of the problem, the B.C. NDP concluded in confidential report, was what the party had to say to British Columbians about the economy.

“[NDP] governments in Saskatchewan and Manitoba defeat populist right-wing opponents by being — and being seen to be — more competent than our opponent on core fiscal and economic issues, as well as more caring about them,” the report concluded. “That is what we tried to do in 2013 in B.C. We didn’t succeed. Our opponent was out every day on a single issue — jobs and the economy. We were attempting to reassure voters we could be trusted with a mandate by spelling out dozens of proposals. We could see within a few days that this wasn’t working.”

Before that, in 2009, with yet another leader, the B.C. NDP again misfired on the economy, speedily sprinting away from its main economic promise. And, as respected columnist Vaughn Palmer wrote in the Vancouver Sun: “When the party released its platform, the vow to get rid of the carbon tax topped the list of highlights. But the NDP downgraded the “axe the tax” drive after it provoked a backlash from some environmental leaders.”

And so on and so on. The B.C. NDP may have many strengths. But for more than a decade, projecting economic competence has not been one of them. In election after election, the B.C. NDP either get their projections wrong — or they abandon their economic promises, mid-writ. Either way, it does not engender confidence.

Tommy Douglas, among others, would not be impressed. Even a New Democrat, he believed, needs to able to say how he or she will pay the bills.

British Columbian hearts, bleeding or otherwise, would tend to agree.


Comments (10)