Politics and the New Media

If you didn't catch TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin last night on Politics and YouTube, the video is here. Hit January 30, Stewart Bell|Politics 2.0

And while we're on the subject ... related from the Washington Post;

"In a viral information age, a distortion of the record can quickly sink in as fact," Madden said. "It was very important to show that what was an anonymous attack eventually became a moment of strength for our campaign."

h/t Patrick Ruffini

Lyle

Girls know it. But the boys don't understand it.
Why? Because it's cerebral.

Genghis Khan leaving his mark

Genealogy - more than digging through old census records.

One in every 200 men alive today is a relative of Genghis Khan. An international team of geneticists has made the astonishing discovery that more than 16 million men in central Asia have the same male Y chromosome as the great Mongol leader.

It's their bread and butter

From the Standard Freeholder;Glengarry Landowners are trying to iron out differences with provincial body

"There are two basic problems," said Jamie MacMaster, a GLA spokesperson, after he met Friday with a transition steering committee of the Ontario Landowners Association (OLA).

"There's a strong faction in the OLA and they wanted to endorse and field candidates in the next fall's provincial election.

"The GLA has always had an aversion to (running candidates) as a political party," MacMaster said, noting the GLA did encourage members to vote for several municipal election candidates last fall, most of whom eventually won.

The second disagreement is more complex.

And divisive. The OLA's continued support for Shawn Carmichael, and Leeds Grenville OLA president Jacqueline Fennell's bid to sell raw milk without quota, is never going to sit well with dairymen in Glengarry. Or I suspect in Dundas or Stormont. A lot of folks milking cows in those counties and most aren't even close to considering life without supply management.

"There's one part of the rural community which thinks it's great (such as dairy farmers), and one part who think it is the worst pox visited upon farmers."

These brewing concerns came to a head in December when the GLA withdrew from the OLA.

Randy Hillier, long rumoured to be considering a run at elected politics resigned as president of the OLA last week.

"We're saying, let's (get our differences) resolved," MacMaster said.

"When you see a map of Ontario and you superimpose our associations, we got a huge swath covered.

"The OLA could be a strong voice for rural residents."

Hard to disagree with MacMaster on that. Of the non-divisive issues, the Rural Revolution has been, not only strong, but effective.

Raw Milk

Public health unit gives farmer notice she'll be charged.

Public health inspectors are ready to do their job if a Roebuck farmer proceeds with plans to open a raw milk co-operative, warns the local medical officer of health.

"We intend to enforce the law," said Dr. Anne Carter, MoH for the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit, in an interview Wednesday with The Recorder and Times.

Carter didn't identify Conavista Farms and co-owners Jacqueline Fennell and John Conklin by name, but she made it clear the health unit is ready to act if Fennell follows through on her stated plans in defiance of a cease-and-desist order delivered by the Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO).

Related post below.
This has little to do with raw milk. It's all about supply management. Interesting times ahead.

Glengarry Quits Landowners

From AM 1220 Cornwall

January 19, 2007- — The Glengarry Landowners Association has removed itself from it's(sic)provincial organization. The G-L-A was not happy with the direction the Ontario Landowner's Association was going. G-L-A Director, Jamie MacMaster tells AM 1220 News they want to stay with the property rights initiatives and that wasn't happening. The property rights initiatives include the rights to own, use and enjoy property. He says they want to stay out of anything that involves supply management.

And from Agrinews; Leeds Grenville Landowners heading it seems in the other direction with its president moving into raw milk production.

A controversial raw milk marketing scheme causing an uproar in Western Ontario has flowed east, sponsored by 25-head Conavista Farms in the Spencerville area.

Under the scheme, consumers who prefer raw milk are invited to enter a cow share program on the farm operated by Jacqueline Fennell, president of the Leeds and Grenville Landowners Association.

In the past, Fennell has also been a non-quota milk shipper. As president of the Leeds and Grenville Landowners Association, she'’s a staunch supporter of Western Ontario farmer Michael Schmidt who was raided in November after openly selling raw milk for more than a decade.

Perhaps Hillier's resignation isn't all about political aspirations.

Comet McNaught

The wee lad and his grandmother saw Comet McNaught shortly after 5:25 last evening. By the time they got into the house to tell us it was gone. I'd forgotten about it but was glad he was able to catch it. He, sweet child that he is, was disappointed that I had missed it. We'll look again tonight.

The best viewing it seems has passed. Bad weather and lack of information prevented some of us from viewing it.

Hillier quits Ontario Landowners Association

From Tom Van Dusen at the Ottawa Sun

PERTH -- Randy Hillier announced his resignation as militant president of the Ontario Landowners Association yesterday.

While he cited a desire to rest, spend more time with his family and explore new opportunities, rumour had it that a growing number of OLA activists thought it time to try another personality at the helm.

More than anything, the OLA became known for the defiance, bombast, call to civil disobedience when required, and media savvy of its president.

Rumour also has it that Hillier plans to run in an upcoming election. Federal? Provincial? Independent or Conservative? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

I could speculate provincial/independent. But I won't.

Attack bunnies

Look at that, honey. Do ya believe it?

Update:I got to thinking about Jimmy Carter and his encounter with an attack rabbit. The story here with photo.

And another here with this interesting note:

While some presidential apologists have suggested that Carter might actually have been attacked by a nutria, a large, aggressive aquatic rodent, others have insisted that the President's assailant was a simple, if unusually vicious, bunny rabbit. Fulk, the 12th century king of Jerusalem, was killed by a rabbit. (Well, really he was killed by a fall from his horse, but the horse had been startled by a rabbit.) And many years ago, I was the owner of a Blue Dutch rabbit named Sequin. One of my friends still bears the scars of an encounter with Sequin--a perfectly matched set of parallel teeth marks, where Sequin's fangs closed on her hand and ripped through the flesh when she pulled her hand away. Bunnies are, indeed, fiercer than anyone but Monty Python has generally given them credit for.

And this is why I'm uncomfortable with big city wildlife. I don't care how cute the squirrels and chipmunks are I don't want them walking down the damn sidewalk with me. Down here on the farm if an animal gets that close they're diseased or injured.

How to write a letter to the editor

15 tips from Paul Russell, National Post letters editor to help you get published. ( small correction - a commenter with the potential to be a fine line editor points out why we should pay more attention when we cut and paste)

Hockey Night in Canada

"If you make up your mind about things before you try it, my boy, you will never go very far in this world."

H/t Sigmund, Carl and Alfred

COME AWAY / GO PLAY

Games To Improve Your Dog's Manners
Scroll down for a couple of games including Come away/Go play to improve your dog's habit of coming when called, even when distracted.

Trade war with Americans a vote grab?

Though admitting that the issue of American corn subsidies is ripe for the picking the National Post suggests that the government's decision to ignore the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) and bring a request for consultations to the WTO is motivated by the political landscape.

In the current environment, the votes of farmers along the volatile St. Lawrence count for more than those of cow and pig producers in the unshakably Tory West. That helps to explain why the government is going against its own panel and taking its beef with Big Corn to the WTO, which uses a different and arguably broader standard of harm than CITT and (by extension) NAFTA.

It's volatile along the St. Lawrence alright. But you can be sure the government's actions aren't about a couple of thousand votes in rural Ontario. Votes I would argue Steven Harper already has in the bag. The volatility stems from years of trying to maneuver in a free trade environment with heavily subsidized American farmers.

With a new Democratic Congress sending out mixed messages on trade and clucking about the need to cushion Americans from the effects of globalization, it is also an opportune time for Canada to send a message of determination to U.S. legislators, and perhaps strengthen the backbones of principled congressional supporters of free trade.

Pundits will go searching for deeper significance in this first step to a trade war with the Americans claims the Post. They won't have to search very far. This isn't the only subsidy issue out there. And NAFTA isn't the only trade agreement of significance to Canadian agriculture.

Farmers in free market commodities in every province are looking for some backbone from Canadian legislators on exports. And, if farmers in supply managed commodities are ever going to embrace a free market system they're going to need better assurances of a level playing field than they've been getting.

Read the rest if you're interested in how the American taxpayer subsidizes the Canadian consumer.
h/t to Jack

Farmers making suckers of consumers

You know there's trouble brewing when the mainstream media cover agricultural issues. From the Montreal Gazette an editorial:Dairy farmers make suckers of consumers .

Canadians are drinking 18 per cent less milk than they did in 1980, consuming 30 per cent less butter and 24 per cent less ice cream. Cheese production is barely holding steady. The Canadian dairy herd has dwindled.

Sounds like a disastrous portrait of a collapsing industry, doesn't it? In fact, these realities are all the result of careful manipulation of the dairy industry by federal and provincial governments and dairy producers themselves.

I'd put less emphasis on the government and more on producers. I can't imagine how scary a free-market system must look to these guys.

This systematic conspiracy against consumers goes by the name of "orderly marketing," and it has resulted in an average profit margin for dairy farms of 25 per cent of operating revenue, almost double the figure for all farms in Canada.

First I've heard supply management called "orderly marketing" but I've kinda been out of the loop. One could argue whether that 25% profit margin makes dairymen wealthier or those of us in the other sectors just twice as poor.

This time the Canadian Dairy Commission is raising the price for "industrial" milk, which is used to make butter, cheese, yogurt, ice cream and more. This increase, at a time when market conditions should be generating lower prices, will echo through the whole food chain.

Meanwhile Quebec's Regie des marches agricoles et alimentaires, acting at the request of the province's dairy producers, has decreed an increase of six cents a litre in the minimum and maximum consumer prices for table milk. So the price of almost all dairy products will be climbing again.

This is a classic example of cartel economics, made legal - we won't say legitimate - because politicians allow it. Tariff walls as high as 300 per cent give Canadian producers a captive market, while consumers pay inflated prices for basic food items. True, some of the decline in consumption of these products comes from demographic change; we have fewer children now, and more newcomers from places where milk products are not a big part of the diet. But some of the decline in consumption is linked to inflated prices.

Diet fads haven't helped dairy consumption either. As a consumer I still find table milk affordable - for a premium product. I've drank New York state milk and believe me we do get a premium product. Same can be said of butter. I'll gladly pay the extra. And so would the rest of the world I bet if they had access to our cheese and dairy products. (shameless self-promotion here )

Systematic conspiracy? Farmers making suckers of consumers? Well, that is just over the top.
From my experience dairy farmers would just like to be able to pay for their kids dental work.
Which makes me wonder if whoever wrote this has a benefit package or has actually met a farmer.

I don't even want to think about the havoc to come from the dismantling of supply management. Compensation for the millions tied up in quota alone is mind boggling. Dairy farmers have every reason to be reluctant. But perhaps American protectionism isn't one of them if we take a lesson from history.

Walker began selling his whiskey as Hiram Walker's Club Whiskey. It became very popular and American distillers became angry, and forced the US Government to pass a law requiring that all foreign whiskeys state their country of origin on the label. This move backfired; Hiram Walker's Canadian Club Whiskey became more popular.

CC is the best selling Canadian whisky brand outside of North America and it isn't even the best we produce. I would sure love to be that optimist about the Canadian dairy industry.

H/t Bourque

HWY H2O

St. Lawrence Seaway officials project a 10% increase in shipping for the 2006 season with components for the Alberta oilsands and European wind turbines for green power projects across North America accounting for some of that traffic.

But for those of us who live along the seaway and see the system as under-utilized at best and redundant at worst this HWY H2O initiative and an increase in short-sea shipping is welcome news.

The Seaway - which has begun marketing itself as an alternative to congested road and rail transportation through its "HWY H2O" program - also saw an increase in short-sea shipping last year, said St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation spokesperson Andrew Bogora.

Short-sea shipping - in which products are shipped from one Seaway port to another - is a perfect example of how the Seaway can partner with trucking and rail companies to get around congested land traffic points, Bogora said.

"There's a lot of benefits to short-sea shipping," he said.

Along with the new and diversifying cargos, traditional products like grain, iron ore and semifinished steel continued to be key markets for the Seaway in 2006.

Traditionally, grains are shipped from western points of the Seaway to the east. On the return trip, ships stop to pick up iron ore in Labrador for use in steel mills in Hamilton.

Even with the growth in traffic, Bogora said the existing Seaway system could accommodate a further 60 per cent increase in cargo volumes.

2008 is the half century mark for the inundation of six villages and the relocation of more than 6000 residents for the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project. The cultural implications of the Lost Villages are still being felt and the economic benefits or lack thereof still debated. Any indication, even after 50 years, that the project justified the sacrifices made is welcome news indeed.

PETA - A Bunch Of Losers

Colorado Governor isn't to pleased.

As many as 340,000 cows and steers have been left stranded by southeastern Colorado's most recent snowstorm, and National Guard units are helping ranchers in a frantic bid to save the freezing animals. Faced with 15-foot snowdrifts, rescuers are airlifting bales of hay and hoping for the best. But as Coloradans are learning, the wealthy People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) isn't about to lift a finger.

Apparently it isn't exactly what they wished for.

As we're telling the media today, the Colorado snowstorm is exactly the kind of emergency that should send PETA into action. But PETA -- whose president publicly wished for a foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001 -- has a stubborn anti-meat bias. To this group of tofu-devouring loonies, seeing the livelihood of cattle ranchers evaporate is a cheap thrill. This may also be the reason why the vegetarian-oriented Humane Society of the United States isn't spending any of the $145 million it raised last year on Colorado helicopter rentals and hay bales.

How much do you love Firefox?

This much?