Here's an interesting essay on the political future of (American) conservatism, brought to my attention by Gerry Nicholls and published by the Claremont Institute. In my view the author gives too little weight to one key point: If liberalism does not work in practice, events will show whether the "reformist" strand of conservatism associated with David Frum or the "traditionalist" strand that includes Rush Limbaugh is right. (And if course if liberalism does work in practice it's silly or malignant to be conservative.)

Whether you're a true conservative or the sort who thinks we should aim for short-run political gain by pretending to be liberals and then becoming them, to put the matter as fairly as possible, is not a matter of taste. It's a matter of judgement about what will produce good results and while this question is theoretical in the short run it's empirical in the long run which has a remarkable tendency to show up sooner than expected.

My guess is we're in for some very interesting (a word here meaning "hair-raising") disasters due to the liberal policies being pursued in the U.S., Canada and almost everywhere else these days. And they will prove that real conservatism is the right policy because it actually works unlike the fake kind or liberalism.

Of course I would say that. But events will show whether I'm right... and pretty soon too, I'm betting.

Today's Ottawa Citizen reports that very clever scientists have made a new, albeit quite unstable, chemical element. The as-yet-unnamed 112th spot in the periodic table is now occupied, briefly, by a metallic element created by smashing lead and zinc together in the sort of way these sorts of people do such stuff. The Citizen adds that it's not obvious what the new element will be called because typically when physicists do such stuff in such ways they name them boringly for the place they did it, for instance Ytterbium for Ytterby in Sweden and (I kid you not) Darmstadtium. I presume to invoke the spirit of G.K. Chesterton in lamenting this drab terminology and yearn for the days when elements got names like lead, gold, mercury or (my personal favourite) wolfram.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, they can't use the boring "where-it-was-made" naming convention here because this is the second such element made in Darmstadt. Fortunately it has instead been suggested that the new element be named Emergencium because its atomic number, 112, is the equivalent of 911 in parts of Europe.

Go for it, nucleus-mashing dudes.

Today's Globe and Mail reports that Ontario's deficit this year is now projected to be $18.5 billion, 24 per cent higher than we were told last week, because of this stupid idea of governments going into the auto business by buying a failed company on our behalf. The Globe adds that "Ontario was already bracing for a record deficit of $14.1-billion for this year - a figure Premier Dalton McGuinty stood by as recently as last Wednesday, the day the provincial budget was passed." Now Mr. McGuinty must have known on Wednesday that his finance minister was about to hurl billions into the Government Motors black hole. So it seems that he must have known the number he was defending was a lie. If, that is, you still think these people know the difference between "what is true" and "what makes me sound good."

If that is what you think, I would be intrigued to hear your evidence.

Well, the NDP got that one right. The pile of press releases on my "desk" (actually my e-mail inbox) includes one from our socialist party on Friday that blares "NEEDED: AN ALTERNATIVE TO HARPERS’ CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY". I agree. For instance an actual conservative ideology. Instead, today's Globe and Mail informs me that "Finance Minister Jim Flaherty warned yesterday that Ottawa's budget deficit this year will be 'substantially more' than projected only four months ago... He declined to reveal exactly how much the deficit has grown, though, saying he will hold off until June when he updates Parliament on progress in doling out federal economic stimulus spending. Ottawa's parliamentary budget watchdog, Kevin Page, estimated yesterday the 2009-10 deficit could hit 'in the neighbourhood' of $40-billion - up more than $6-billion from Mr. Flaherty's January forecast of $33.7-billion. A $40-billion deficit would be record territory for Ottawa and an uncomfortable achievement for the Harper government, which came into office eager to trim public spending."

Well, I should hope it would be uncomfortable for them to out-deficit the dreaded Brian Mulroney. But then again, maybe that's because I'm a conservative ideologue. The real kind.

In today'sToronto Star, columnist James Travers claims the PMO is trying to silence the PBO because... sorry, lapsed into Acronyese there. He says the Prime Minister is refusing funding and otherwise making life difficult for the new Parliamentary Budget Officer because, Travers asserts, "In short order, and with gold standard analysis, the budget officer first embarrassed Conservatives by revealing the soaring costs of the Afghanistan war during the fall election. Then he cast deficit shadows over sunny economic forecasts. Retribution in Ottawa is swift and summary." This assessment does not merely reflect but contributes to a fairly serious problem. The Parliamentary Budget Office, as I noted recently in a column, was established to strengthen the voice of MPs not compete with, supplement or supplant it and some former MPs are concerned that it's exceeding its mandate. The PBO claims it's not, arguing among other things that it automatically makes all its reports public to avoid getting caught up in spin and manipulation. Which I believe is the right approach, also followed by the Congressional Budget Office down in the U.S., which has established itself as professional and non-partisan.

The thing is, it's very hard to avoid being seized, spun around and used to whack one's adversaries in the current climate in Canadian politics. It's especially hard when you're doing budget analysis given the rather obvious tendency of members of all parties to exaggerate, misrepresent and fantasize about fiscal matters and when journalists as well as politicians have not just a pervasive habit of enflaming controversies, but a material interest in doing so.

I wish I had some really good piece of advice to offer the PBO but I don't, not least because much of it is out of their hands. For instance the very first Parliamentary Budget Office study, of the costs of the Afghan conflict, was seized upon by politicians who misrepresented the findings without effective challenge from the media. But the PBO, and especially its head and public voice Kevin Page, must be very careful not to appear to quarrel with the government especially when PBO numbers do not sustain the more partisan contentions coming out of the PMO and government caucus.

Meanwhile all the rest of us who care about good governance have a responsibility to grasp what the proper role of various organizations is, to defend them when they do it well and rap their knuckles when they do not. Including, I have to say, journalists who depict everything in government as a cat fight because those are easy to cover and exciting to read about.

Michael Ignatieff begins a defence of his party's EI policy in today's National Post with the words “We’re in a recession that is rewriting the rules of our economy." Why do they talk like this? There is much to be debated in the Liberal proposal to make EI more generous because, again quoting Ignatieff's article, "Improving eligibility will bring help to workers who have paid in but don’t currently qualify. It is also the most effective, rapid and targeted form of stimulus the government can offer our economy right now."

It is important to discuss whether the immediate assistance from relaxing social program eligibility is, or is not, offset by increasing the dependency effects such programs do, or do not, create. It is important to discuss whether this sort of spending really stimulates the economy or simply takes from Peter to pay Paul without increasing the total wealth of the Apostles. But how are we assisted in having this discussion by a pompous, vacuous and untrue assertion that the rules of the economy just changed?

In point of fact, if this assertion were correct we would be unable to have a discussion at all because theory and experience alike would go out the window, illuminating as they do only the operation of the old rules that we just discarded. Since it is not correct, and there is no rational argument that it is correct, it merely serves to obstruct our relying on what we already know to evaluate new proposals. If it is mere coincidence that this assertion is made by a man whose new proposals fly in the face of past experience it is certainly, from his point of view, a convenient one at this juncture.

Drawing on experience while there's still time, I note that in his third radio "fireside chat" in the early 1930s president Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a similar, and equally daffy, claim: ‘I happen to know that professional economists have changed their definition of economic laws every five or ten years for a long time.” FDR knew nothing of the sort; he had no idea what professional economists said economic laws were or why except that they said his ideas were bad which they were. But listen to his follow-up: “We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”

Michael Ignatieff, I fear, is relying on the same notion that just as politicans can change the criminal laws if they don't like them, they can change the economic laws. But they cannot, and any proposals based on the claim that they can are doomed to expensive failure.

OK, now we know why they talk like that. And why we shouldn't believe them.

Yesterday I mentioned the MP housing-allowance scandal convulsing Britain's parliament and asked why we don't do such things here. Today the Speaker of the British House of Commons resigned because Members were convinced he wasn't taking the matter seriously enough.So I ask again: Why don't we do such things here?