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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Saturday, June 26, 2004 :::
As for as I know, there are two ways to become Prime Minister in a minority government. If your party lacks a majority, you can form a coalition. However, if you cannot or do not wish to do so, you can attempt to form a minority government.
One way is to get support "from the outside", in which another party or parties will agree to vote to put your party in office but will not participate in your government, i.e. will not take ministerial office and will not accept the whip. A minor party may be motivated to do this because they believe that the government they are supporting is the best possible alternative under the circumstances. Because they disagree with your platform, they do not want to be bound to support your initiatives; however, your failure to form a government might lead to a new election or a government including other parties with which they disagree more.
A second way is if one or more smaller parties agree to abstain on motions of confidence. They would have similar motivations here, i.e. the fear that someone worse will come along if you are thrown out. A recent example from the UK: When John Major's majority was reduced to a small minority through deaths, resignations, defections, etc., the Ulster Unionist Party abstained on motions of confidence, allowing the Conservatives to win small majorities of the votes cast. They feared that a Labor government would come to power if an election were held and that a Labor government would be worse for Northern Ireland.
Both situations are very difficult, since the Prime Minister can count on enough support to stay in office -- provided the minor parties are kept reasonably content -- but not enough to pass any legislation or accomplish anything, barring the aforementioned issue-by-issue coalitions. It is easier, I would guess, for a centrist party to survive such an arrangement, because it can muster support from the right on some issues and from the left on others.
That said, I am far from an expert on Canadian parliamentary procedure!
::: posted by Eric at 10:20 PM
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Basque and certain Caucasian languages have what they call an "ergative" noun case; it is used for the object of a transitive verb, or the subject of an intransitive verb. I'm not sure, though, that this is terribly meaningful; the full definition of a verb is really going to have to specify the relation between its subject and, assuming it's transitive, its object, so I don't see why the "ergative" isn't more or less a subject case, and their "subject" case more or less an object case.To be sure, the subject in most languages for most verbs tends to be the one that is more active; the object is being acted upon. We even have active and passive voices to enshrine this fact in our metalanguage. Still, consider the Swedish verb "heter". (That's the present tense indicative conjugation; Swedish doesn't conjugate by person or number.) It means, essentially, "to be called/named". The subject of the verb is called the object of the verb; "they call me knuckes" could become "jag heter knuckles", dropping the "they" that is introduced largely to comply with the demand that the verb contain a subject. That "heter" relates differently to the nouns with which it finds itself affiliated than does any similar verb in English caused no end of confusion in my Swedish class. Perhaps a better example, though, is "gustar", from Spanish, which is translated "to please", but is not used in the way that verb is used in everyday American English. Gustar means to like, sort of, if you swap around the subject and the object. So if A finds B pleasing, who is active, the one pleasing or the one being pleased? The customary English expression supposes that liking someone is an activity one undertakes; the Spanish expression seems to suggest that being liked is something one does. Perhaps gustar is a Basque word, and the person being pleased is the ergative....
::: posted by dWj at 4:46 PM
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How does one become "the PM of a minority government"? Do misterial appointments — prime or otherwise — require a majority for organization, or can you do that with a plurality? Is Queen Elizabeth involved?
::: posted by dWj at 2:42 PM
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My guess about the Canadian elections is that a second general election following quickly on the election of a hung parliament would ratify the apparent winner of the previous one, perhaps with a majority. People ideologically committed to a particular party would vote the same way, but people who want effective government (a larger constituency than those who want ineffective government) would strategically vote for the party they think stands a better chance of winning. (I ignore those people who think of elections as if they were lotteries and try to pick the winner when they vote. I think they're a small group.)
If the Conservatives do end up with a plurality in a hung parliament, they should grant independence to Quebec and form a majority.
::: posted by Eric at 12:25 PM
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Friday, June 25, 2004 :::
I have some idea how Canada's election on Monday is going to turn out. What I'm wondering is, how is Canada's September election going to turn out?
If you really want to know what's going on up there, you should check Colby Cosh or Andrew Coyne. But it looks probable that the Conservatives will win fewer than half of the seats and that the ruling Liberals and the socialist NDP combined will win fewer than half of the seats. That leave the Bloc Québecois. The leader of the Conservatives has already pledged not to form a coalition with them; he says that if he becomes the PM of a minority government, he'll form issue-by-issue coalitions -- if he can actually pull that off, more power to him, but unless he's very close to a majority, that strikes me as skating on thin ice. But he knows parliamentary politics better than I do.
Regarding Dean's quip about the size of Canada's economy "if Canada were an independent country", Conrad Black wrote the following in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal:What makes them Canadian are their generous social programs, relatively (to the U.S.) high taxes to pay for them, and the endless repetition of the mantra that Canadians are not Americans, despite being practically indistinguishable from Americans from northern states. Canada is inundated with American popular culture, large numbers of talented Canadians steadily emigrate to larger opportunities and lower taxes in the U.S., and more than 85% of Canada's foreign trade, about 43% of GDP, is trade with the U.S.
Canada is probably more closely integrated with the American economy than is the state of California. None of this inhibits the independent fantasies of most Canadians, but they distinguish themselves from the U.S. in relatively gentle terms compared to what Americans are used to hearing from most other countries. Emphasis added. Regarding the first sentence of that excerpt, I once told a Brit that I thought the main difference between Americans and Canadians is that Americans are proud that they're American while Canadians are proud that they aren't. He thought that sounded about right.
::: posted by Steven at 8:11 PM
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I was talking to a trader this morning; activity has been light for weeks, and this has largely been attributed to next week's fed meeting and Iraq handover. (Sources of volatility have been excuses for high volume at other times. The financial media are a fascinating excercise in persistent cognitive dissonance. But I digress.) I quipped, "nobody wants to take a large position before the Canadian election next Monday," and he just went blank. "That was a joke," I said. "Oh," he said, with a polite chuckle.
Thing is, if they're headed for the kind of stalemate election that appears likely, I wonder whether this could have an effect of some kind on the market, especially if it takes a while to come to a resolution. Canada would have the ninth largest economy in the world if it were an independent country, and sustained uncertainty could at least concern the securities of those companies with a major presence there.
::: posted by dWj at 6:10 PM
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Thursday, June 24, 2004 :::
I went to a Republican "Meetup" tonight. Represented blogs and web sites included Blogs for Bush, Pardon My English (which I hadn't heard of before), and Republican Voices, to which I referred last week. Toward the beginning, state rep candidate David Slavitt was there.
::: posted by Steven at 9:48 PM
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Apparently, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, the recent book about punctuation, has some punctuational problems of its own.
::: posted by Steven at 6:18 PM
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As a Red Sox fan, I've been known to refer to the Yankees as evil. Nonetheless, congratulations to the family of Yankee pitcher Jose Contreras, who have recently escaped the Cuban government, an organization which is literally evil.
::: posted by Steven at 5:40 PM
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Lileks is having trouble with the blood-for-oil morons again:I've said this before, but I'll repeat myself. You have Bush. You have Saddam.
One is a megalomaniacal dictator with a small moustache who killed millions, gassed ethnic minorities, annexed a neighbor state and paid underlings to kill Jews.
The other is Hitler. I can't agree that Saddam's moustache is "small". It's really not necessary to read the whole thing.
::: posted by Steven at 11:02 AM
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Obama's pretty much in dead-girl/live-boy territory at this point. If he got on Mayor Daley's bad side, I assume that could be arranged.
I hadn't realized how recent (or from whom) that quote was.
::: posted by Steven at 2:14 AM
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Wednesday, June 23, 2004 :::
First, most divorce records are not sealed. This was an exception. I don't know how it is that they get sealed, or unsealed, though I do agree with my brother that it seems that if they were sealed for good reasons before, an amorphous "public right to know" seems shaky grounds for unsealing them.As for the political impact, this was Obama's race to lose from the beginning. On the one hand it seems hard to believe this sort of thing will last more than a couple weeks; while Blair Hull seems to have been sunk by similar developments a few weeks before the Democratic primary, that was a four man race, in which a loss of credibility is going to be self-sustaining; Ryan is still the most credible alternative to Obama, and will remain so. On the other hand, Ryan hasn't held elective office before, and has largely run on biography and character up to this point. (Made millions as an investment banker, quit to teach at an inner city school.) If Obama weren't black, Ryan would probably have had a decent shot at peeling off some black support on the basis of his story. Obama is a man of great integrity, a family man, and the downstate cultural conservatives will now see more of themselves in him than in Ryan. While Ryan still may attack Obama as liberal, Obama's pretty much in dead-girl/live-boy territory at this point.
::: posted by dWj at 9:22 PM
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Con-law geeks should note that Randy Barnett, Eugene Volokh, and Cass Sunstein are all sharing blog-space, if only temporarily. Of course, if you care, you probably already know.
::: posted by Steven at 8:25 PM
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Taleb's book, which is full not only of infuriating meanderings and off-putting self-importance but also of extreme brilliance, changed the way I think about investing. This is Glassman, on "Fooled by Randomness", a book I read a few months ago after having picked it up and started it a year or two ago. I'm not sure I like agreeing with Glassman, so I'll just note that I didn't mind the meanderings.
::: posted by dWj at 7:38 PM
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P.J. O'Rourke asks, "When was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?" I hope he's not under the impression that that's their purpose.
The purpose of Limbaugh's show, O'Reilly's show, O'Reilly's book, Ann Coulter's book, Michael Moore's books, Al Franken's book, etc. is to entertain the home-team fans. People like to feel that someone's one of them, and they often enjoy hearing one of them make fun of those who aren't them. They entertain first, then they inform, and then, maybe, they'll occasionally persuade someone who is on the fence on a particular issue who usually agrees with the showman.
Non-profits like National Review probably tend to be more idealistic. I'm sure the people who frequent NRO are mostly on the home team, just as most of Limbaugh's listeners are. But Limbaugh's point is to get ratings. NRO's writers are where they are because they hope to inform their fellow conservatives and push the movement forward. They both need audiences, but in NRO's case, that's not their entire point.
The only time I remember yelling at the radio (as O'Rourke does when he listens to NPR) was when local host Howie Carr, whom I often agree with, was agreeing with me that we should invade Iraq. Every time he had a caller who disagreed with him, rather than attempt to answer the caller's point, he'd quiz the caller on military ranks, and deem him/her ignorant when (s)he got one wrong. I don't know whether he was unable to think of a good response, or whether he just thought this cuter, but it infuriated me. I think this was exacerbated by the fact that I usually had an immediate response, and genuinely wanted to hear a counter-response -- I was sure there were some good points to be made on the other side. Many of Howie's dissenters were blood-for-oil morons, but many of them weren't, and I wanted a chance to hear them.
If I've ever yelled at NPR, I don't remember it -- I do remember mocking things I heard on NPR, and laughing at comments that probably weren't meant as laugh lines. But I can't recall yelling.
Incidentally, O'Rourke makes this comment:I'm so conservative that I approve of San Francisco City Hall marriages, adoption by same-sex couples, and New Hampshire's recently ordained Episcopal bishop. Gays want to get married, have children, and go to church. Next they'll be advocating school vouchers, boycotting HBO, and voting Republican. The apartment I lived in a few years ago was shared with a quite-liberal gay fellow. We disagreed on most things political, but were generally able to discuss politics without sounding like Howie Carr. At one point, I made the comment that gay marriage might be good, as a means of discouraging homosexual promiscuity and encouraging deeper, lasting relationships. By the end of the conversation, he was arguing against gay marriage. I hadn't expected that.
Link from the Kitchen Cabinet.
::: posted by Steven at 1:16 AM
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I find this rather disturbing:Several Chicago media organizations had sued for release of documents relating to the Ryans' divorce, saying the public interest outweighed their concerns about privacy and the possible effect on their now 9-year-old son. Friday, a judge in Los Angeles, where their divorce was litigated, agreed to unseal portions of more than 360 pages of documents, although large parts remained blacked out. If divorce records are going to be public documents, that's fine. If they're going to be sealed, I can support that. The rules should be clear up-front. But the idea that they're sealed until some lawyer cites a "public right to know" makes me uneasy.
::: posted by Steven at 1:09 AM
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 :::
81st and Cottage is about two miles south of where I used to live.
I wrote up both of those posts yesterday, but they didn't go through. For what it's worth.
::: posted by dWj at 10:03 PM
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There's a BankOne outlet on the south side of Chicago -- the meanest side of town, or so I gather from my brother and Jim Croce -- and they have a serious security system, including a metal detector. Metal detectors are not standard at BankOne branches, but neither is the need for them. Some people are claiming that this is racist, because most people living near the BankOne in question are black.
I try not to use the word "stupid" for people I disagree with, but sometimes it's a challenge.
"When Bank One only enacts such restrictive access and displays such offensive signage within this African American community, then this policy becomes demeaning, disrespectful, and discriminating," said Ill. Sen. Jacqueline Collins, 16th District. I don't think Bank One should be held responsible for the inability of the Illinois legislature to control crime.
Incidentally, Dean, 81st and Cottage Grove is about a mile due south of where you used to live, right?
UPDATE: Apparently, my brother already commented on this.
::: posted by Steven at 8:06 PM
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As the British psychologist Richard P. Bentall has observed, ''There is consistent evidence that happy people overestimate their control over environmental events (often to the point of perceiving completely random events as subject to their will), give unrealistically positive evaluations of their own achievements, believe that others share their unrealistic opinions about themselves and show a general lack of evenhandedness when comparing themselves to others.'' Indeed, Bentall has proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder.
::: posted by dWj at 7:04 PM
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I was recently wondering about Mayor Daley's successor. We would miss his arrogance and self-importance I thought; perhaps we should elect Father Pfleger after Daley, for whatever reason, leaves.Well, lo and behold, Father Pfleger has been the gleeful recipient of yet new attention in the news media. From FoxNews, A bank branch on the high-crime south side of Chicago is accused of being racist because it requires customers to go through a metal detector on their way into the building, reports ABC7.... The Rev. Michael Pleger of Saint Sabina Catholic Church called the situation, "pure racism, racial profiling, black while banking, it's stereotyping, it's sending every negative message you can send." If you click through to the ABC7 report, you may eventually see that Despite the protest, some customers said the security system make them feel safer and prefer having the extra security when doing their banking."I like it. It makes me feel good that I don't have to worry about somebody coming in on me and maybe robbing the bank or something," said Milton Maynes, Bank One customer. In fact, on a local public affairs show last week, it was indicated that this view seemed to be that of a majority of the customers.Many large banks simply won't open branches in these neighborhoods; I hope Bank One doesn't let media hungry people like Pfleger to make it impossible to do business there.
::: posted by dWj at 7:04 PM
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Quoth Lileks:I ask my Democrat friends what they'd rather see happen - Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They're all honest: they'd rather see Bush defeated. I have to confess, this doesn't appall me. In fact, I'd rather see Bush re-elected than bin Ladin captured. If the choice is between Bush and an other 3000 dead in New York, I'll take my chances with Kerry. But bin Laden just doesn't matter that much anymore.
::: posted by Steven at 2:46 PM
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Michael Moore has a new movie out. Liberal hawk Christopher Hitchens has seen and reviewed it. He's not a fan:Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery. He gets more specific -- read the whole thing. Link from Lileks.
::: posted by Steven at 1:50 AM
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Monday, June 21, 2004 :::
The latest Zogby state-by-state poll puts Bush ahead, 285-253. Applying my bizarre adjustment to it flips two states, Arkansas and Michigan. In the previous poll, Arkansas supported Bush by 7.7%, and in this one it supports Kerry by 2.1%. Michigan had backed Kerry by 4% and now backs Bush by .7%. Putting each state in the camp that had it two weeks ago gives Bush a smaller 274-264 lead.
Many of the states are within the margin of error; ignoring these gives Bush a lead of 220-204. There are still no plans to hold the elections before November.
::: posted by Steven at 6:47 PM
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Colby Cosh has posted -- along with five paragraphs of preamble -- an interesting column about reproductive freedom.
Incidentally, I traded email with him this morning. On the Canadian poll web page I recently linked to, three of the four polls they listed for "the Prairies" indicate a tight three-way race, while the latest poll has the Conservatives over 50%. I asked Cosh whether something had happened to precipitate this, or whether it was a polling error. He maintains that the close polls are using unrepresentative samples, and that the Conservatives should do quite well in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We'll see in a week.
::: posted by Steven at 5:11 PM
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With rumours of Iran massing forces on the Iraqi border, and reports now that Iran has seized British ships, do you suppose we're going to be in active war with another major force for evil before the election?
::: posted by dWj at 8:28 AM
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Mark Steyn covers Clinton's Autobio:Why, you wonder, would they want to go through one more summer season of Monica and Paula and all the rest? Because, so his defenders have convinced themselves, it makes them look good: unlike the Bush administration with the scandal of Abu Ghraib and torture, in the Clinton administration the biggest scandal was about oral sex. Say what you like, but, in the Clinton era, the only naked guy with women's panties on his head and a dog leash round his neck would have been the President breaking in the new intern pool.
This comparison is valid in the narrow sense that Bill Clinton, like Abu Ghraib, has been blown out of all proportion. But Clinton is what you wind up with when you have Reagan's communication skills but nothing to communicate: you're left with pure celebrity... Emphasis added. I'm sure you're all gambling-at-Rick's shocked that Steyn wrote something funny and unfriendly about Clinton's book.
::: posted by Steven at 3:41 AM
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I've heard bad things about the Reagan biography Dutch, but I've tended to think that, given unlimited time, it might be worth checking out. Then I read this Mark Steyn bit:Everything you need to know about the establishment's view of Ronald Reagan can be found on page 624 of Dutch, Edmund Morris' weird post-modern biography. The place is Berlin, the time June 12, 1987:'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' declaims Dutch, trying hard to look infuriated, but succeeding only in an expression of mild petulance ... One braces for a flash of prompt lights to either side of him: APPLAUSE.
What a rhetorical opportunity missed. He could have read Robert Frost's poem on the subject, 'Something there is that doesn't love a wall,' to simple and shattering effect. Or even Edna St. Vincent Millay's lines, which he surely holds in memory...Only now for the first time I see
This wall is actually a wall, a thing
Come up between us, shutting me away
From you ... I do not know you any more. Poor old Morris, the plodding, conventional, scholarly writer driven mad by 14 years spent trying to get a grip on Ronald Reagan. Most world leaders would have taken his advice: You're at the Berlin Wall, so you have to say something about it, something profound but oblique, maybe there's a poem on the subject ... Who cares if Frost's is over-quoted, and a tad hard to follow for a crowd of foreigners? Who cares that it is, in fact, pro-wall - a poem in praise of walls? Punchline:Edmund Morris has described his subject as an "airhead"... If I'm in the mood for a farce, I might take an other crack at "American Beauty", but probably not Dutch.
Incidentally, I don't think Frost's poetry is any better than John Kerry's (they're actually quite similar). But my point of view may be a result of the fact that New Hampshire Public Television overplays Frost.
::: posted by Steven at 2:39 AM
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