Here's a revealing email exchange. (It was prompted by this column.)

Emailer: "Every time I read some of your leftist hogwash I think to myself... he has finally reached the nexus of assholery ...but then I realize ... you are still evolving"

Me: "The argument I make about excessive centralization is exactly the same argument conservatives, including Stephen Harper, made about the Chretien government. Except now it's "leftist hogwash." Strange, isn't it?"

Emailer: "If what you say is true...where is your article from back then condemning  Chretien when he was enacting excessive centralization ...you were around ...odds are you didn't object to the Liberal policies ..prove me wrong...strange isn't it."

Me: "Actually, no. It's not strange. Here's me making exactly the same criticism of Jean Chretien: http://www.dangardner.ca/index.php/articles/item/148-letat-cest-jean
And here's an up-dated reference: http://www.dangardner.ca/index.php/articles/item/151-stephen-harper-condemns-stephen-harper I have been consistent. Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have not. Period."

Emailer: "The only thing consistent in your articles is chronic Harper bashing...I am sure Stevie Wicary will be pleased to put you up in Havana after Harper wins his next majority and your boy Mulclair is sent packing."

So this person set a precise test to determine whether I am impartial. When I showed clear evidence that I met the test, he ignored the test and evidence -- a good demonstration of how fierce partisans use reason and evidence only as tools in the service of partisan or ideological conclusions which can be overturned by neither reason nor evidence.

How does the committed partisan handle compelling evidence of, at a minimum, incompetent administration, such as the AG report on the mishandling of the F-35 file? Not by modifying the core belief. That belief is the central organizing principle of his perceptions and thoughts. It must be right. Hence, the evidence is misleading or unpersuasive or ... something. Human ingenuity being as wonderfully dexterous as it is, there are always rationalizations and evasions. The following is an email sent to me, in response to this column, which demonstrates the point nicely:

My mother would be horrified but I have to brag. Brag, brag, brag. It seems Silicon Valley legend Vinod Khosla is a big fan of Future Babble!

His verdict: “If you read one book this year, Future Babble should be it – it’s a fresh conventional wisdom-busting book that will have you questioning all the so-called ‘expert advice’ you’ve followed over the years.”

Brag.

One of the few responses I got to this column about marijuana potency:

You must have been stoned when you wrote your article 'The myth of the potent pot'  Pllllllease!  I am from the 70's generation who did smoke the best ... B.C. Bud/Okanagan Gold.....  So do the math... I am in my 50's and no I don't smoke anything anymore but have tried a bit and have friends who still smoke occasionally and say that the pot now is EXTREMELY strong...even for some old pot heads.   You say you have personal experience ......what is your experience?  To advocate that pot is not harmful is just totally irresponsible and frankly laughable. Hey, have another joint and write something like....hmmmmm ...acid or mescaline was really  OK ..... oh you know those crazy 70's.

Responding to this column, a reader straightens me out:

Dear Mr. Gardner…I have some news for you.  History is simple; it is not the mystery that you claim it to be.   It’s called follow the money. The banks made the past, they own the present,  and they control the future. They always have and always will. The banks ruined Rome and Greece. It took them a couple of hundred years to do so, but they eventually either killed all the Kings of Europe or reduced them to puppets.

The banks created Oliver Cromwell, they had Charles the First murdered; they sponsored the so called French and Russian Revolutions, and they created WW1 and WW2 , and all the little wars and revolutions since the beginning of time.    When Paul Warburg and Nelson Aldrich, acting on behalf of the Rothschilds, created their Central Bank called the FED in 1913,  they essentially took control of the world most of the world. The rest would soon follow.

The banks have fought every US President since 1776. The Presidents they could not buy or control, they murdered, or at least tried to murder.

You are amazed at the rise of China and the downfall of Europe and America. Wonder no more. No country can complete with the banker’s retooling of industrial China and its slave wages. During the worst depression in the world, the 1930’s, the banks put their money into Nazi Germany and it flourished while the rest of the world was being choked by the bankers who had simply restricted the flow of money world -side.   When the banks decided to destroy Hitler and make billions of dollars in doing so, and to rearrange the world to their liking,  they then created secretly sponsored Stalin and the USSR for 60 years, ( they even gave the USSR the atomic bomb). They did this until the US tax payers became so hopelessly in debt that the bankers had to finally pull the rug on the USSR and it collapsed in months. The banks then created the perfect boogey man- the terrorist- through cute little tricks such as 9-11- and they have been happily destroying country after country that refused to let them in to control their economy through the IMF, World Bank or through a central bank. That's what the destruction of Yugoslavia, Iraq, now Syria, Afghanistan, The Sudan, Somalia, of course Libya,  and soon to be Iran is all about.

I hope this helps you in your understanding of the world. But you knew all this before.

The government's omnibus crime bill is enormous and difficult to read, as it mostly consists of scattered amendments to this or that legislation. But after some time struggling through it, I've found several instances where the government's public statements about what's in the bill do not entirely capture what's in the bill. I'll have more on this in a column to be published Monday.

In the meantime, I tweeted some of what I've found -- including the fact that someone who grows even a single marijuana plant in a rented apartment, with the intention of sharing it with a friend, would be hit with a mandatory minimum of nine months in jail.

The press secretary to the minister of justice emailed to tell me I was wrong. So I had another look. And I consulted with some people far more capable than I. And I became even more strongly convinced I'm right -- and the press secretary to the minister of justice doesn't know what is in her government's bill.

The legislation can be found here. See section 41(1).

Following is my correspondence with the minister's press secretary.

Here's a curious thing: When the topic is federal politics, Conservatives argue that Canada is doing remarkably well in troubled times and credit goes to the Great Helmsman, Stephen Harper. Liberals disagree. Things aren't nearly so rosy as Conservatives claim, they say, and in any event the prime minister cannot take credit.

But when the topic is Ontario politics, the polarity reverses. Liberals argue that Ontario is doing remarkably well in troubled times and credit goes to the Dear Leader, Dalton McGuinty. Conservatives disagree. Things aren't nearly so rosy as Liberals claim, they say, and in any event the premier cannot take credit.

Now this might make sense if economic conditions in Canada as a whole were very different than economic conditions in Ontario. But they aren't, which isn't surprising given that one-third of Canada's population lives in Ontario. In a very meaningful sense, Ontario is Canada.

An alternative explanation? It's yet another demonstration of the distorting effects of political partisanship. To the truly committed partisan, reality has only modest influence on perceptions. Tribe is all: Whatever explanation makes my side look good, and their side bad, is ipso facto correct. No further inquiry is needed.