Strategic Voting in Kildonan-St. Paul: Vote NDP

Kildonan-St. Paul: vote NDP

Strategic voting in Kildonan-St. Paul

In recent posts, I suggested strategic voters in Elmwood-Transcona should vote NDP, and in Winnipeg South Centre, strategic voters are best advised to vote Liberal. In this post, I will argue that although Kildonan-St. Paul is a long shot, tactical voters should back the NDP.

• The incumbent MP for Kildonan-St. Paul, Conservative Joy Smith, has decided not to run for re-election;
• threehundredandeight.com gives CPC an 80% chance of holding the riding;
• in 2011, the CPC got 58% of the vote; the NDP, 30%; and the Libs, 8%. 
• for further developments, consult the votetogether.ca profile and the ongoing discussion electionprediction.org 
• strategic voters should probably back the NDP candidate

Other posts:

Strategic Voting in Winnipeg

• Strategic voting in Elmwood-Transcona: vote NDP
• Strategic voting in Winnipeg South-Centre: vote Liberal
• Strategic voting in Kildonan-St. Paul: vote NDP
• Strategic Voting in Saint Boniface-Saint Vital: vote Liberal
• Strategic voting in Winnipeg South: vote Liberal

Strategic voting in Winnipeg South Centre: vote Liberal

Winnipeg South Centre: vote Liberal

In my last post, I urged strategic voters in Elmwood-Transcona to vote NDP. In the nearby riding of Winnipeg South Centre, strategic voters should vote Liberal.

Strategic voting in Winnipeg South Center

• The Conservative incumbent is Joyce Bateman, who was recently in the news for reading a prepared list of 'Enemies of Israel' at a B'nai Brith sponsored campaign debate
• Bateman captured the seat in 2011 by less than 700 votes. The results were Con 39%, Lib 37%, NDP 18%. 
• a poll conducted by votetogether.ca Sept. 18-21 places the Liberal candidate (Jim Carr) ahead at 38%, with the Conservative at 31%, and the NDP at 23%
• threehundredandeight.com projects the Liberal as having a 63% of winning
• electionprediction.org projects the riding as a Liberal win
• strategic voters would do best to back the Liberal candidate, Jim Carr.

Although the prospects to defeat the Conservatives are good here, tactical voting is still advisable here.  According to a CBC report, the boundaries of the riding have been changed in the Conservatives favour.

In sum, strategic voters would do best to back the Liberal candidate, Jim Carr.

Update.  Votetogether has now endorsed the Liberals for strategic voters in Winnipeg South Centre.

Other posts:

Strategic Voting in Winnipeg

• • Strategic voting in Elmwood-Transcona: vote NDP
  • Strategic voting in Winnipeg South-Centre: vote Liberal
  • Strategic voting in Kildonan-St. Paul: vote NDP
  • Strategic Voting in Saint Boniface-Saint Vital: vote Liberal
  • Strategic voting in Winnipeg South: vote Liberal

Strategic voting in Elmwood-Transcona: vote NDP

Strategic voting in Elmwood-Transcona: vote NDP

Strategic voting in Elmood-Transcona

Winnipeg has become an important battle ground in the recent election. In the last election, in 2011, six of the eight ridings that include part of Winnipeg went Conservative. In several of these, strategic voting could make a difference.  One of these is Elmwood-Transcona.

• Elmwood-Transcona is currently held by a CPC incumbent, Lawrence Toet, who captured the seat in 2011 with a margin of 284 votes;
• the NDP candidate is Daniel Blaikie, son of Bill Blaikie, who represented Elmwood-Transcona from 1979 to 2008
• two polls taken in Elmwood-Transcona conducted by votetogether.ca in August and September place the NDP support at 37% and 39%; the CPC at 30% and 39%; the Liberals at 25% and 20%; and Greens were 6% and 4%;
• threehundredandeight.com projects the NDP have a 63% of winning;
• see the discussion at electionprediction.org
• strategic voters in Elmwood-Transcona should vote NDP

Update on Elmwood-Transcona

The CBC has a story on the NDP campaign in Elmwood-Transcona, which is pushing Blaikie as the strategic choice

NDP literature pushes strategic voting in Elmwood-Transcona

Update.  Votetogether has now endorsed the NDP for Strategic voting in Elmwood-Transcona.

Other posts:

Strategic Voting in Winnipeg

• Strategic voting in Elmwood-Transcona: vote NDP
• Strategic voting in Winnipeg South-Centre: vote Liberal
• Strategic voting in Kildonan-St. Paul: vote NDP
• Strategic Voting in Saint Boniface-Saint Vital: vote Liberal
• Strategic voting in Winnipeg South: vote Liberal
• 
  

Who gave CPC Candidate list of 'Enemies of Israel'?

The Winnipeg Freepress reports (registration needed) that a Jewish audience, to its credit, reacted negatively to the Conservative candidate's attempt to smear Liberals as 'enemies of Israel':

Bateman, the Conservative MP from Winnipeg South Centre who is running for re-election, was sitting onstage at the Asper Jewish Community Campus in Tuxedo for an all-candidates forum hosted by B'nai Brith. Up until that point in the evening, the crowd of 100 or so had been exceedingly polite and well-behaved.

Bateman and the other candidates -- Liberal Jim Carr, New Democrat Matt Henderson and Green party candidate Andrew Park -- had performed admirably, tackling questions about the movement to boycott Israel, domestic terrorist threats, re-establishing diplomatic relations with Iran, poverty and the economy. 

It was all going well until Bateman piqued the ire of the crowd when she starting reading off a list of names from the Liberal campaign -- volunteers, paid staff workers and candidates alike -- who had been identified by the Tories as "enemies" of Israel. As she got to Andrew Leslie -- the decorated retired lieutenant-general from the Canadian Armed Forces running for the Liberals in Ottawa-Orleans -- the crowd erupted with shouts of "shame." 

Another report of the debate is here

Seen recently in southern Ontario

Less bad than one would have predicted

Michael Coren, who at times can seem appallingly stupid, has written a column on Ontario's new sex ed curriculum (here).

Dawg v FD Decision

A friend of a friend forwarded me a copy of the ruling in Dr. Dawg's defamation case against Roger Smith and Freedominion.

For those who need a reminder, Dawg had sued Mr. Roger Smith (also known as Peter O'Donnell) for describing him as "one of the Taliban's more vocal supporters" and FD for publishing it.

The highlights are:

1. the judge found that these words were indeed defamatory; 
2. FD was indeed a publisher and therefore responsible for these words (their argument denying this "is disingenuous and ignores reality");
3. because the words occurred within the context of a wider discussion that was within public interest, it could fall within the scope of a defence of fair comment;
4. demonstration of malice would prevent a defence of fair comment, but because malice was not the dominant motive, fair comment stands.
5. All parties are responsible for their own costs.

All in all, this looks to me like a draw.  Bloggers and other commenters should note that 'malice' and 'fair comment' are terms of art and applied here to a specific interaction.  Reading between the lines, it looks to me like the FDers had a near miss on 'malice'.

Favourite paragraph?  Obviously §201: 

Given that the entire point of defamation law is to determine the meaning and effect of words, the defendants submit that an incoherent post cannot have any meaning and therefore cannot defame the plaintiff.

Heh.

Update.  Dawg's take here.

Update on Warman and the Cools post

The wheels of justice, as the saying goes, grind slowly.

Long time readers will remember that I spent a good deal of time in 2008 investigating the allegation that Human Rights activist and lawyer, Richard Warman, had written a nasty racist screed about Anne Cools, and concluded that this was not possible:

1. the IP address used by the author of the Cools post (which had later been used by Warman) was a load-balancing proxy usable by any of Rogers' close to a million customers;
2. the browser and setup used by author of the Cools Post was different from Warman's in several key ways (here and here); 
3. the 'expert' opinion presented by Bernard Klatt arguing that Warman was the author of the Cools post was deeply substandard in several ways (here)

Warman brought a defamation suit against those who had claimed that he wrote that post, and the case has been inching its way through the court.

I have now seen the Court report related to this case (available here). It dismisses with costs the motion of Levant (the defendant) that Warman surrender 12,000 pages of data without redactions for privilege or relevance.

One interesting point that I noticed there, which might be added to those above: 

Two separate Expert Reports (dated December 17, 2009 and April 23, 2010) concluded that (i) there was no evidence Mr. Warman's computer was even turned on the day the Hateful Posting was authored, and (ii) no evidence existed of the Hateful Posting anywhere on Mr. Warman's computer.

To which my response can only be:

A post-retirement career for Hadfield?

Too cool

Check it out.

Whaaa?

Litigation makes strange bedfellows, I guess.

Blog like a pirate

In honour of the annual talk like a pirate day:

Moving to Canada…

… to escape socialized medicine?  hmmm.

"The only thing I hate more than the Romans ..."

apropos of nothing

Aggregators aggregate and make it easier for me to find interesting blog posts from a variety of sources. Belonging to one does not need to imply approval of other blogs; the removal of a blog from the aggregators that I regularly means that I might miss its posts. That makes me sad.

Gay marriage was a slippery slope after all

Same-sex marriage is a slippery slope. A Sens fan marrying a Leafs fan? Abomination..

Swedish Government Recognizes File-Sharing Faith as a Religion Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/blogs/gear-up/swedish-government-recogn

From Rollingstone:

The Church of Kopimism, a new faith focused on file-sharing, has been officially recognized as a religion by the Swedish government. The church developed from the Young Pirates, a young movement of the Pirate Party in Sweden, who have pushed for the free flow of information online.

What Santa is doing while you sleep

More here.

Two guitar players missed

BCL (and others) have been discussing Rolling Stone's recent list of the top guitarists, pointing out glaring omissions, including Django Rheinhardt. Here are another two who were somehow passed over.

Why punctuation is important

So, the Dalai Lama walks into a pizza shop…

The dog barking that keeps you awake at night…

… is not what you think.

Orwell as Nostradamus

George Orwell, 1984:

"She had without exception the most stupid, vulgar, empty mind that he had ever encountered. She had not a thought in her head that was not a slogan, and there was no imbecility, absolutely none that she was not capable of swallowing if the Party handed it out to her."

Estimating crowd sizes

There has been rather different estimates of how many people are in this picture:

The CBC report that the police estimated this crowd at 5000 (here); Lifesite claimed 15,000 (here), and the National Post, 20,000 (here).

Crowd estimation isn't too difficult a business. The basic procedure is to multiply the crowd density by the area (see the discussion here, from Obama's inauguration)

"A loose crowd, one where each person is an arm's length from the body of his or her nearest neighbors, needs 10 square feet per person. A more tightly packed crowd fills 4.5 square feet per person. A truly scary mob of mosh-pit density would get about 2.5 square feet per person."

How many square feet? Google Earth pro does the calculation for us.

It looks to me like the center walk falls roughly in the 10-square feet per person, and the two sections on the lawn on either side perhaps half that.

My rough guestimate, then, is

• 3200 people in the center (32,000 sq. ft. divided by 10 sq. ft. per person)
• 2550 people in the right-hand wedge (51,000 sq. ft. divided by 20 sq. ft. per person)
• 2100 people in the left-hand wedge (42,000 sq. ft. divided by 20 sq. ft. per person)

This puts the total at c. 8000 -- though probably less, since the left- and right-hand wedges are probably smaller and less densely occupied that the above estimates suggest. On the whole, it looks to me like the CBC is closer to being accurate than either Lifesite (who seem keen to inflate for reasons that escape me.)

Strategic voting in Ontario

There has been some talk about strategic voting. Here are my suggestions for how strategic voters might best cast their ballots in Ontario. These are cases where incumbants are vulnerable and there does seem to be a three way race.

Ten ridings where strategic voters should vote Liberal

Eglinton--Lawrence, where Joseph Volpe had 43.99% in 2008, just 4.74% ahead of the Conservative. (The NDP was at 8.42%)

Mississauga South/Mississauga-Sud, where Paul Szabo had 44.22% in 2008, just 4.63% ahead of the Conservative. (The NDP was at 8.85%)

Brampton--Springdale, where Ruby Dhalla had 41.04% in 2008, just 1.71% ahead of the Conservative. (The NDP was at 11.57%)

Brampton West/Brampton-Ouest, where Andrew Kania had 40.33% in 2008, just 0.43% ahead of the Conservative. (The NDP was at 13.6%)

Guelph, where Frank Valeriote had was at 32.22% in 2008, just 3.04% ahead of the Conservative. (The NDP was at 16.49%; Greens were at 21%)

Kitchener--Waterloo, where the Liberal in 2008 was at 36.03% in 2008, just -0.03% behind of the conservative, who was elected. (The NDP was at 14.73%)

Mississauga--Erindale, where 42% in 2008, just -0.71% behind of the Conservative, who was elected. (The NDP was at 8.55%)

Oak Ridges--Markham, where 41.52% in 2008, just -0.72% behind of the Conservative, who was elected. (The NDP was at 9.4%)

Kitchener Centre/Kitchener-Centre, where 35.94% in 2008, just -0.76% behind of the Conservative, who was elected. (The NDP was at 18.09%)

London West/London-Ouest, where 35.42% in 2008, just -3.67% behind of the Conservative, who was elected. (The NDP was at 14.57%)

Three ridings where strategic voters should vote NDP

Sault Ste. Marie, where Tony Martin (NDP) had 40.43% in 2008, just 2.71% ahead of the Conservative. (The Liberals were at 16.76%)

Welland, where Malcolm Allen (NDP) had 32.91% in 2008, just 0.59% ahead of the Conservative. (The Liberals were at 27.93%)

Oshawa, where Mike Shields NDP had 34.73% in 2008, just 6% behind of the Conservative, who was elected. (The Liberals were at 16.05%)

How much access does neo-nazi psychopath have to Conservative data

The ARC points out that Michelle Lisson (aka Michelle Erstikaitis), pictured right, seems to be working for Toronto Centre Conservative candidate, Kevin Moore. (Confirmed by BCL; see also DrDawg)

Two questions.

First, does Kevin Moore know this about Ms. Erstikaitis/Lisson:

TORONTO — A disturbed and violent convict who idolizes sex killer Paul Bernardo and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh told a judge yesterday she wanted to consent to being declared a dangerous offender.

Michelle Lyne Erstikaitis, 30, a diagnosed psychopath, told Justice Todd Archibald she wanted to plead guilty to assaulting her boyfriend and agreed to being declared a dangerous offender -- which means an indefinite sentence.

Second, what material does she have access to? Given that the Conservative Party has a voter-tracking database that tracks what party's lawn sign is in front of whose house, and what kind of pictures are displayed on whose facebook pages, should voters in Toronto Centre be concerned?

Update. Erstikaitis has been removed from the Conservative campaign (here).

Don't piss Ezra off, PETA

Or the kitten gets it.

Is Conservative Wally Daudrich against government health care?

Conservative Candidate in Churchill Wally Daudrich is providing some interesting fodder for bloggers:

• BCL: What Is Wally Doing?
• BCL: More Wally Daudrich
• Janet: Did the Con candidate Willy Daudrich learn creative writing from TeaParty?

Indeed, I've already pointed out a few eye-brow raisers from Wally's facebook page:

• Bouquets: Is Conservative Wally Daudrich a Tea Partier?
• Bouquets: Conservative Wally Daudrich calls the NDP communists

Now, indeed, the Press has taken notice. See Anti-abortion Tory candidate called Obama worst U.S. president, biggest liar by Jim Bronskill of the Canada Press, who noted this troubling post from Wally Daudrich's facebook page:

Big City Lib is surprised that this was the post that got press' attention. It strikes me, however, that what is especially important is not so much the name calling as the context.

Daudrich's outburst came following Obama's success in convincing the American congress to pass comprehensive health care bill, a bill (once its implemented) will provide Americans with greater access to more affordable health care. Readers will remember that opponents of the bill manufactured all manner of falsehoods about the legislation, most famously about prospective death panels, but also that the Obama health care fill would fund abortion (which wasn't so, see here, but that's a little beside the point).

And this, I think, raises a more fundamental question. If Daudrich is opposed to Obama's health care reform, which relies much less on government and much more on private insurance than the Canadian system, what does he make of Canadian medicare?

Update. CTV news now on the story.

Is Conservative Wally Daudrich a Tea Partier?

Yesterday BigCity Liberal posted twice on Wally Daudrich, Conservative Candidate in Churchill:

• What Is Wally Doing?
• More Wally Daudrich

I see now that deBeauxOs has also noticed Daudrich, asking Did the Con candidate Wally Daudrich learn creative writing from TeaParty?

The answer, apparently, is yes. His facebook page (which is full of interesting stuff!) lists his activities and interests. There are a number of other eye-brow raisers, to which we may return. For now, however, it seems that Daudrich includes among his activities both the American Tea Party Patriots and its Canadian imitator the Tea Party of Canada.

Conservative Wally Daudrich calls the NDP communists

Yesterday BigCity Liberal posted twice on Wally Daudrich, Conservative Candidate in Churchill:

• What Is Wally Doing?
• More Wally Daudrich

We can add to this Glen McGregor at the Ottawa Citizen criticizes Wally Daudrich, for red-baiting in attacking his NDP opponent, Nikki Ashton, as a "Chinese educated socialist". The implication is clear. (She went to a Liberal Arts college in Hong Kong.)

Sadly, this is not Mr. Daudrich's only such outburst, as a peruse of Wally Daudrich's facebook page shows:



Calling the NDP communists? That's so, 1980s!

Marty Burke: Not there for you, Guelph students!

Instead he's apparently sent an operative to keep you from voting.

$9,460 for Harper's haircuts during the G20?

"According to Fraser, the Harper government expensed $9,460 for five "upscale haircuts" for the Prime Minister." Wow.

Update. For more on Harper's haircut at the G20.

Update 2. Oops. The sentinal dispatch is satire. As you were.

immanuel Kant -- wrong on metaphysics

Conservative candidate Marty Burke scrubs controversial views from website

Yesterday Scott Tribe blogged about the controversial opinions that Marty Burke, Conservative candidate in Guelph, has shared in various letters-to-the-editor in recent years, including:

• denouncing the war in Afghanistan "a near worthless operation" undertaken with the purpose of "saving face for a useless Liberal government"
• making thinly veiled racist criticisms of the choice of Michaëlle Jean as governor general

Another letter (made in the aftermath of Harper's failure to gain Canada a seat on the United Nation's Security Council) seems to advocated suspending payment of Canada's dues to the UN.

If Burke didn't understand how out-of-sync with his constituents such views are, he seems to know now. To the left is a copy of his webpage as of a couple weeks ago (webcache via Google). To the right is what he webpage looks like now. All his letters-to-the-editor seem to have been removed.

Vote against spam and spammers!

Bloggers may or may not recognize the name Harry Tsai, the Conservative candidate in Scarborough-Agincourt. He seems to engage in a practice that bloggers universally despise — comment-spamming.

So, for example, in a MoneySense article on increasing auto premiums, we find Harry Tsai commenting (here) that "You can save $$ on car insurance premium !!" Clicking on the link under his name takes you to the webpage of SID autowatch, a maker of vehicle security systems.

Similarly, at a Money Canoe article on increasing insurance premiums in Ontario Harry Tsai leaves a nearly identical comment (here) advocating vehicle immobilizers.

And SID autowatch? Apparently Mr. Tsai has a financial interest. Here is a picture of him manning their promotional booth at an industry function.

Which brings us to our point: oppose comment-spam by voting against comment-spammers like Harry Tsai!

This day in history.

Frodo destroys the ring. March 25, 3019 (S.R. 1419)

The Harper government falls. March 25, 2011.

Saip trouble in Delta-Richmond East

Dale Saip, the Conservative candidate in Delta-Richmond East has some explaining to do!

(ht: BCL)

I'm feeling lucky

Apocalypse deferred (indefinitely)

In 2005, right-wing bloviator and professional Islamophobe Mark Steyn wrote an article for the Jewish World Review with the title ("U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode"), which adumbrated the argument of his book, America Alone, that Europe was in the process of being overrun by Muslims. Money quote from Steyn's article:

"By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025."

These projections has never been clearly exlained (for some speculation, see here), but (as I've pointed out before) the figures are wildly wrong, as is clear from a a recent study by the PewForum (here), which places the Muslim population of Europe at barely a fraction of Steyn's number:

"In Europe as a whole, the Muslim share of the population is expected to grow by nearly one-third over the next 20 years, rising from 6% of the region’s inhabitants in 2010 to 8% in 2030."

The difference is, frankly, enormous and leaves Steyn's analysis is shreds.

(h/t Dawg)

Harper lowers expectations

In today's speech celebrating his five years as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper is reported to have said: “We are in this minority government. We haven’t been able to pass what we want to pass. But that doesn’t mean we have forgotten … there will be an elected senate and we will get rid of that wasteful, ineffective long-gun registry.”

As a wish-list for a future majority this is noteworthy for two reasons. First, it is surprisingly thin: senate reform and the gun registry are pretty small issues in an age where we have Canadian soldiers stationed overseas and a $56 billion dollar deficit.

The second reason is that, unlike the gun registry (which Harper could kill with a majority), an elected Senate is not. Even with a Parliamentary majority, true senate reform would require a constitutional amendment, and to get that, Harper would have to negotiate with the provinces, and there is no reason to think that this is in the cards.

Given that Senate Reform is impossible, is this all that Harper can offer in his majority? No gun control?

Wow.

Santa exposé continued

Big City Liberal has uncovered some shocking details from Santa's past. Now, at over at Bumblepigs there are pictures about what Santa is up to now, including stealing your beer:

Pretty neat, eh?

An amazing visualization of the world's economic progress over the last two centuries:

How many Canadians use American Health Care

Apparently not that many, according to the studies on Canadian use of American Health Care.

Wind-power take-down

Over at The Disaffected Lib you can find a first rate take-down of wind-power opponents, including Progressive Blogger's own Wind-Concern Ontario. The problem, as Disaffected points out, is the single-mindedness and ill-informedness of the opposition: a bird being killed by a turbine's rotor is somehow seen as a serious problem, but the thousands of people whom epidemiologists estimate are killed by the emissions of coal-fired power-plants can be ignored.

Disaffected's criticisms hold for wind-opponents in general, but the Wind-Concern group seems to me to present its own problems. Wind-Concern claims to be a coalition of 40-some anti-wind groups. If you start to look, however, it is often difficult to determine who the people are involved. The whole operation has an odour of astro-turf about it.

How does that prorogation look now?

In light of the recent news that the enough NDP MPs will be voting against the Conservative attempt to end the gun registry, I wonder how Harper feels about his last prorogation. Instead of allowing the government to recalibrate and regroup, it seems to have allowed the opposition to do so.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

Another Apology for Richard Warman

Over at Free Dominion -- which puts the 'dumb' back in Dominion -- there's another apology for Richard Warman. More to come in due course, I'd guess.

h/t

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

What next?

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

Richard Warman's new site

Richard Warman, who has been the subject of several series of posts, has a new website.

Bad dawg!

I was the lucky recipient of Dr. Dawg's hospitality last night -- great food (the Dawg's skills in the kitchen are truly amazing), stimulating conversation with Dawg and his co-blogger, Marie Eve, and five bottles of wine (or was it six?).

Needless to say Buckets is feeling a little under the weather this morning, and I hold Dawg responsible!

Robbery, armed robbery, and the gun registry

There's been some discussion over at BCL about the Firearms Registry and its effectiveness. Just to add some hard data to the debate, there's this statscan chart. (I've marked the date of the Firearms Act.)

For discussion, try at BCL.

Exploding whale

Heritage Front redux

The last few days has seen some discussion about the now-defunct Heritage Front, its associates, and its character.

It started with the latest instalment in a series about Marc Lemire by the ARC Collective (the earlier installments are: part 1, part 2, and part 3). The smoking-gun, as Dawg has called it, is a transcript of a relay chat that took place in Sept. 2001 between James Scott Richardson (who had the handle WPCANADA, presumably for "White Power Canada") and Lemire (who has chosen the handle "FdaJEWS" for "F*** the Jews").

Freedominion, too, has chipped in. Connie dismisses this all out of hand (here):

but recycling the same old lies doesn't get you any closer to proving Lemire somehow wrested control of the Heritage Front from CSIS when he was barely out of his teens.

This is a little confused. CSIS control of Heritage Front? Apparently the reference is to the CSIS infiltration of Heritage Front by Grant Bristow. Bristow, however, was exposed and went into hiding in 1994, seven years before the exchange in question. But by then Lemire could hardly be described, as Connie puts it, as "barely out of his teens". According to this Lemire was born in 1975, which will have placed him in his mid-twenties in Sept. 2001 when he called himself "FdaJEWS".

Nor was this the end of Lemire's association with Heritage Front. In June, 2002, Heritage Front's magazine, Upfront (archived here), profiled the activities of its Hamilton chapter, which had distributed 6000 copies of an anti-immigrant pamphlet. The profile included the following picture of Lemire holding the pamphlet in front of Hamilton's Henderson hospital. (Just in case you can't make out that logo see the blow-up on the right -- yes, this is Heritage Front literature.)

Here we have what Connie wants to deny: a fully-adult Lemire presenting himself as the face of a post-Bristow Heritage Front.

Nor is it hard to find other examples of this from these years. In May 2001, for example, Marc Lemire wrote an open-letter to the German-Canadian Congress in support of Helmut Oberlander. His letter was also published at the Heritage Front website (archived here) as a "Letter from the Heritage Front". Again, a fully-adult Lemire presents himself as speaking for Heritage Front.

Was he the leader of the HF? That's less clear, though some within the movement clearly thought so. But regardless of that it is clear that he belonged to the HF and was involved in its leadership.

My guess?

My guess?

Fingerprints on the baggy.

(It's as good as any, isn't it?)

Rahim Jaffer Conservative error

As Big City has pointed out, Rahim Jaffer's webpage has been up and down a lot. The problem now, apparently, is removing that pesky Conservative logo. Next step? Take the whole thing down. Or maybe not (screen-shot as of 5 minutes ago):

On charting priestly child abuse

Apologies to for my slow blogging, but I've been travelling. Now that I'm back home from out east, I want to expand on a point that made in the comments at John Pacheco's place.

The point at discussion was the interpretation of a graph found in study of the scope of priestly abuse commissioned by the United States Conference of Bishops in 2002. The study itself was undertaken by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Here is the graph:

Pacheco's point is that the scandal is "is long past" and he is sharply critical of those who "drudge up decades-old garbage which has largely been dealt with".

The idea that these details are decades old should probably not go unchallenged. Below is the graph from chapter 5.2 of the same study as to when these allegations were made by year:

As you can see, the vast majority of the allegations themselves were made just a year or two before the study. Presumably these are adults coming forward to share details of the abuse that happened decades ago, as is in any case implied by this chart of the year of the start of abuse for the single year 2002, when there appears to be something of a spike:

And this one, which reports time between the incident and the report:

This last one especially should give pause for those who think that this problem is completely behind us. To judge from this, 10% of allegations of abuse are reported right away and another 10% within a decade of the abuse. Most allegations, however, wait until the victim decides to come forward in what seems to be their 30s and 40s and 50s.

This may mean that huge bump in the middle of the graph is largely a function of the age of the abusees (on average 12, according to this study) and the delay in reporting. The 12 year-olds being abused in 1982 (which seems to be the peak) are now 40. As subsequent cohorts mature, the shape of this graph will resolve. But we really won't know whether the number of 12-years abused this year is less than those abused twenty years ago for another few decades.

Happy Easter

(For the t/s)

Keeping those numbers in perspective

Lifesite News (and one of the usual suspects) want us to keep the numbers of allegations of priestly abuse in perspective:

In the last several weeks such a quantity of ink has been spilled in newspapers across the globe about the priestly sex abuse scandals, that a casual reader might be forgiven for thinking that Catholic priests are the worst and most common perpetrators of child sex abuse.

But according to Charol Shakeshaft, the researcher of a little-remembered 2004 study prepared for the U.S. Department of Education, "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

100 times more abuse by teachers than priests? Worth remembering.

But keeping things in perspective may not in fact help their argument much. There are 6.8 million teachers in the US (see here), which is about 164 times the number of priests ( 41,406 according to wikipedia).

An under-appreciated point on the abuse of Roman Catholic priests

Michael Wolff makes an important point about the recent controversy about the Catholic Church and its handling of the recent scandals involving sexual and physical abuse committed by priests.

The issue in the Church’s almost decade-long sexual abuse scandal is less about priests and boys, and more substantially about its long, defining battle with secular authority.

That’s the message that comes through the clearest: The Church didn’t want to notify the police about the criminal activity of its priests and didn’t believe it had to. And, having enormous sway in US police departments—policing being, peculiarly, an Irish and, hence, Roman Catholic profession—and within governments in Europe, the Church was pretty much free to make that decision on its own.

As many have pointed out, the Church is not the only institution that has had to face this problem. There have been abusive Boy Scout leaders and public school teachers. But in such cases, accusations have been turned over to the police, and failure to report allegations is itself a serious enough offence that (say) a school principal would be dismissed for ignoring them. The Church seems, uniquely, to regard itself outside the law in these matters.

h/t Andrew Sullivan.

Jay Currie, Richard Warman's computers, and the Cools post

As many readers know, a nasty racist screed was made about Anne Cools in September 2003 on Marc Lemire's Freedomsite. During a hearing before the CHRT, Bernard Klatt argued that the author of that post was probably Richard Warman, who denied it under oath. The allegation that was subsequently repeated by a number of other bloggers whom Warman sued. The matter is now slowly working its way through the courts.

I have discussed the evidence extensively on this blog and came to the conclusion that:

1. there is no evidence that Warman is the author of the Cools post, 
2. Warman's computer could not be the source of the Cools post, 
3. Bernard Klatt's testimony before the CHRT was seriously deficient.

A recent news article discussing the case (here) was noticed by long-time blogger (and talented photographer) Jay Currie (here). Someone cited several of my postings on the subject, to which Jay responded (here):

I am aware of Buckets work, Harry, as you will see from the comments on those articles – however this was not “an investigation” nor were these “findings”. And, probably most to the point, virtually all of buckets work relies on the assumption that Lucy only had one computer. Now, he has entered a computer in evidence – though he won’t let the defence actually look at it – and it is a laptop computer. What are the chances that a super, duper, whooper secret internet hate buster like Lucy would only have one computer? And his wife? Perhaps she has a computer? And perhaps he has a computer from the CHRC or DOD. buckets is interesting but not at all depositive.

I am, of course, happy to learn that Jay finds me interesting. In saying that my work assumes that Warman had only one computer, however, he rather misses the point, since the one-computer thesis is not mine, but Klatt's.

If we ignore trivialities like the fact that Warman had a yahoo email and the Cools' poster had one from hotmail, Klatt's argument is twofold (see Klatt's affidavit, §§ 22-41):

1. that Warman's visits the site in October and November were made through the Rogers IP 66.185.84.204, the same IP as the Cools poster had used (see esp. §35)
2. that Warman's computer and computer of the Cools poster were configured identically and were therefore the same computer (see esp. § 36)

I have demonstrated that neither point helps identify the Cools poster:

1. Rogers set up 66.185.84.204 to act as a web-caching proxy, which means that it channelled the traffic of any of Rogers 800,000 subscribers or anyone who had access to their computers
2. The computer that Warman used to visit the site three times was different from the Cools poster's in several key respects, and Klatt misunderstood the logs he was using

Now Jay proposes a second computer. Does this help? Not really. Klatt's argument is that the IP was the same and the computer was the same. If the computer was not the same, all that's left is the IP, which was shared with millions.


(Comments welcome.)

Deep thought

Are there no Tim Horton's in Ottawa?

If a correction falls in the forest…

Big City Liberal recently expressed surprise that he'd missed that Ezra Levant had posted a minor correction related to his Giacomo Vigna defamation case. (Vigna, in case you forgot, is suing Ezra for suggesting that he'd faked an illness before a Human Rights Tribunal.)

How is it that the ever-vigilant BCL has missed this? The reason becomes clear if you look at the dates. The post in question presently looks like this (apart from the red arrow, pointing at the date):

The blog aggegrator Silobreaker, however, didn't get Ezra's post until a week later (again, note the red arrow):

This can only mean, I think, that Ezra's correction was not originally published on January 18, as it claims, but on the 23rd. As confirmation one might note that the first comment to the post was also made on the 23rd (as noted by me and others here). (Those comments have subsequently disappeared.)

Now, there has been some discussion over at BCL (here, in comments, and here) about what this means. Clearly the post has been "back-dated". (Blogging software allows bloggers to override the dates of their posts, making things appear to have have published either earlier or later than they were written.) Why? Such back-dating has the effect of burying it below other blog posts, with the result that it receives less attention than it otherwise might. Whether that was the purpose here is for others to judge.

Update.

When did Ezra really publish his 'correction'? His post was picked up by the aggregator regator.com as its item 229754183:

The posts are apparently numbered in sequence:

• 229754181 is from Jan. 22, 2010 at 09:30 PM
• 229754182 is from Jan. 23, 2010 at 12:31 AM

Since Ezra's post is next in the numerical sequence it too must be dated to the 23rd.

Second Update.

If there is any doubt, here is Ezra's own atom feed, which dates the post to January 23rd:

Blogging uncool (but we all knew that)

A Pew study on the Internet confirms our darkest fears:

• In December 2007, 24% of online 18-29 year olds reported blogging, compared with 7% of those thirty and older.
  
• By 2009, just 15% of internet users ages 18-29 maintain a blog—a nine percentage point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages thirty and older now maintain a personal blog.

The really bad thing? The only thing less cool than blogging is reading blogs. Gotcha.

It's official -- the onion ring is king!

Some wit started a facebook group this morning: Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper?

Harper, you see, has 29,916 fans facebook fans.

A few minutes ago, the Onion Ring King has 29,919!

Canadians against Proroguing Parliament passes 150,000

Meanwhile, the Facebook group "Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament continues to grow. It has just passed 150,000.

Mmmm .... doughnuttsss

Did someone say doughnuts?

Is there an interesting story behind the shirt? I betcha there is!

From Palin's recent book tour:

Heh.

No corkscrew? Try this?

Halloween candy rots your teeth ... and more (mwuahaha)!

From Pat Robertson's CBN:

During Halloween, time-released curses are always loosed. A time-released curse is a period that has been set aside to release demonic activity and to ensnare souls in great measure ... During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes. These activities include:

Sex with demons
Orgies between animals and humans
Animal and human sacrifices
Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
Revel nights
Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

Musical chairs

No, musical stairs. Check it out.

RRRRRR!

It is, according to Dawg, blog like a pirate day. It's a good think I have one of these: