Good Liberals

The Liberal party leadership convention is this weekend in Montreal......my friend is going as a delegate and I am a bit jealous since it seems that this will be a very interesting convention.

Stephan Dion currently has the momentum. All candidates have serious electability problems. I feel that only Dion has a prayer of winning the next election - but even so his chances are slim.

Unfortunately none of the candidates are liberal at all in the classical sense of the word. Canadian politics is depressing, but not as depressing as American politics.

It is your duty to smoke

Link.

What is more important - individual freedom, or health and safety? I think this is actually a very profound question. I would argue that, while it is of course important to find a balanced middle ground, at the end of the day freedom is more important and freedom is currently being trampled on by shoddy science and political correctness. Have we become so precious that a bit of tobacco smoke is too much for us to handle? Must we cry and whimper to the police state if a smoker dares to light up anywhere in our general vicinity? Oh police!!!! Come ticket this nasty smoker! My asthma! My precious pink lungs!!!! Woe!

If you value personal freedom, it is your duty to enjoy the occasional smoke. I'm telling you - it is your ****ing duty. Stem the tide. This is serious. The world is full of people and institutions that want to control you and they are generally all evil. Government, religions, environmentalist whackjobs, political ideologues......they're all the same.

When government wants to limit our freedom, they should be imposed with a very heavy burden of proof that the limitation is necessary. Marginal statistical correlations regarding the health effects of second hand smoke (that might very well simply constitute noise in the data) are not enough. When did we get so compliant? Everyone should be concerned about this whether they smoke or not.

P.S. I can't sleep because hockey makes me wired.

P.P.S. I think Chan broke up with me tonight.

P.P.P.S. I think I am turning into a nutcase

The Dutch have gone nuts

Dutch to ban Muslim Veils

This seems to me to be an unwarranted trampling of individual rights. The Dutch normally seem so civilized.....

Married people are a minority in the U.S.

I read it today in the NYT. Married people are a minority for the first time (ever?) in a long time. People don't get married. Why? I have some theories:

1. We live in a selfish culture. Marriage and family involve sacrifice that many people are not willing to make. Not saying this is bad, but it's true.
2. Marriage does not make pragmatic or economic sense for many people. The probability of divorce is high. The economic costs of divorce are also very high. For people who have no compulsion to reproduce (see #1) there is very little marginal utility to the acquisition of a spouse. In a world where both people are typically required to work and where common-law relationships are not discouraged, marriage has become an anachronism. At one time a large part of marriage involved an implicit contract (division of labour etc..) between a couple that would allow the family unit to function. Today that notion has been obscolesced by economic realities. Boo ya.
3. Speaking of economic realities.....people these days establish themselves in stable careers much later in life. This may also be a factor.
4. The decline of religion's influence on people's lives.
5. Standards are waaaay too high. After 1 date 90% of girls stop returning your phone calls even if you call them like 12 times a day. The girls who do return calls usually only say "Stop calling me!" and then hang up.
6. Other guys always making you look bad by making fun of the way you throw a football.
7. Most people can't see past the ponytail, long dirty finger nails, Japanese anime collection, and multiple felony convictions to the beautiful person inside.