Oil and polls #nlpoli

Two things for Tuesday after a monster snow storm.

Oil:  Brent crude hit a low of $52.50 before rebounding to finish Monday at just below US$55 a barrel.  Newfoundland light, sweet crude trades at Brent prices.

West Texas Intermediate was even lower.  It settled at $43.88 with global production staying high and analysts fearing a glut.

Thus is a reminder of the folly of Conservative policy that ignored historic trends and did nothing to hedge against a rainy day. The people who made the stupid decisions and the people who gave them the crappy advice should be dragged through a public inquiry and account in public for their decisions and advice.

Never heard that before

Memorial University’s political science department is undergoing a reinvigoration of the kind not seen in the department in nearly 40 years.

You can credit it to a crop of bright, aggressive and curious professors like Alex Marland and Matthew Kerby.

In the second part of a series on the department, the Telegram’s Dave Bartlett interviews Kerby and Marland and the pair discuss three myths that affect Newfoundland and Labrador politics.

Marland and Kerby also discussed some of the accepted — but not necessarily factual — beliefs in this province’s political culture, which they’ve discovered through their research and by observing local politics.

“What bothers me about Newfoundland politics is, the more I research … the more I realize that things (are) repeated, and it’s not necessarily always for good reasons,” said Marland.

And the three myths?

One, that the pro­vince would be better off if it didn’t join Canada in 1949. Two, the reason for the collapse of the fishery, and three, that it’s not the pro­vince’s fault it was ripped off by the Upper Churchill agreement.

Bond Papers readers will find this discussion fascinating if not just a wee frickin’ bit familiar.

Don’t expect some of this corner’s regular commenters to take too kindly to the professors’ ideas.

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When will she get the flick?

A political science professor at Memorial University developed a computer program to help predict when a cabinet minister will get fired.*

CBC Radio’s Central Morning Show interviewed Matthew Kerby for an broadcast on July 9.

Kerby’s indicators include:

• age
• sex
• educational level
• profession
• potential leadership challenger
• strength of government majority

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* added “minister”.