Archie Andrews, Idiot

There are two sad discussions here.

1) Archie is proposing to Veronica. Everyone knows you should pick Betty. Just like you should go with Mary-ann over ginger.

2) This is front page news all over the world.

On Obama's Supreme Court nominee

A jurisprudential doctrine was expressed by a certain Illinois state legislator in a 2001 radio interview: "The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. ... It says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf."


I don't really care whether or not she is a Latina. I don't really care that she is a woman (except that I do think that there was a decide lack of XY chromosome balance). I don't really care that she is from the Bronx (go Yankees!).

I care whether or not she honestly believes that the Constitution guarantees a basic standard of living.

Don't get me wrong, I think it SHOULD guarantee that - but as my liberal and libertarian friends assert - I am a strict constructionist. I think that the constitution should apply to the words and intent behind it.

It was, after all, judicial activism run amok that transformed "the right to bear (not bare) arms" against a corrupt government into "the right to own armour piercing bullets."

Some commentators have suggested that the vetting process has to go back to looking at decisions made in a previous life. I couldn't disagree more. I think a) that excludes non-judges from selection and b) ignores the facts of any particular case - as any student knows, the facts are more important in arriving at a just result than the principles extolled at appeal.

I think that vetting should be about the fitness of the person to hold office, and that it is up to the President to decide what kind of judge they want on the bench. Let him/her read the decisions and say "I want you to write the same kind of decisions for our country."

The new appointees political/academic views on the breadth that the constitution can take, however, are fair game.

Hey Brother, can you spare $16 Billion

Cuz, I lost it on a balance sheet.

Ok- there are a lot of things I can tolerate - one of them is not people who are so blinded by ideology as to forget how math works.

That said, I have to admire his zeal - the balls it takes to walk out into a throng of reporters and say "you know, that thing I said four months ago, it was really wrong." Not that he gave them any warning to prepare questions or anything...

And blaming the economy for the shortfall in revenue while simultaneously saying that we are in good economic stead - priceless.

I have the solution - lets CUT TAXES again.

Oy.

This is mostly a test of my remote capacity

The Red Sox suck

 

 

 

Blue Jays

Have come back down to earth it would seem.

That is what happens when you play teams in your own division.

Or, as luck would have it, play teams that know how to play baseball.

If I had a Dhalla for everytime I heard that...

The yankees won four straight games.

I got a hole in one (my second in 8 months, my fourth lifetime)

I had too much red bull, and not enough sleep.

And, for whatever reason, we think that how much of a collective douchebage Ruby Dhalla's family is somehow any of our business.

Do I think that MPs have to hold themselves to a moderately higher standard than you and I? Well, if they want to win, they should, but otherwise no.

Do I think that MPs can use Parliamentary proceedings to attack their opponents. Obviously they can, but I think it is tacky - and should affect their ability to win. Not the bad actors - they affect their ability on their own - using the process to expose "how bad they are" when the newspaper is doing a fine job on its own.

Do I think that hauling foreign workers, however poorly treated, in front of a standing committee for political gain is appropriate? Not on your life- they looked terrified and rightly so.

I am glad that while half of the country is focused on Mulroney/$300K the other half is focused on the Canadian Nanny gate - I am glad there is nothing wrong with the economy or anything.

Do I think that while you read this article, someone in Canada will take advantage of a foreign worker? Yes - and it should be made even more illegal and easier to prove.

Do I think that one iota of change will come from these proceedings? No.

And it is sad. That politicians have no problem exploiting these people - for their own gain - knowing that they have been exploited. Shame.

Attack Ads about Attack Ads!

I am absolutely incensed by the latest throng of Conservative ads against Iggy.

Watch the one on the bottom right

This is an attack ad about attack ads. What is next, an ad about why third party advertising limits shouldn't be limited because of the unfair limitation on the freedom of speech?

"Harper, hates freedom. Except when he litigated against finance limits, only to reverse them later."

Ok- I have calmed down a bit - this website is hosted in MONTENEGRO. As in "Not Canada."

If you go to this website, you are "just visiting."

More to the point - I could make the EXACT same add about Stephen Harper - except I would insert the word "Alberta" - and say you weren't here for NEP. You weren't here to fight against the Charter. You weren't here for stagflation - you just moved here to become Prime Minister.

It would actually work in Alberta, and everyone else would realize that I was making fun of Albertans and their wacky social policy preferences. The joke would be on them.

Or, I could make an add that said "Stephen Harper wasn't in Ottawa to vote against these great initiatives" and then list the accomplishments from 1997-2002 - and while building up the great liberal record, make fun of them for what he would have voted against. Like CEPA, for example.

Doesn't anyone care that they voted against a lot of really important stuff? And striped the funding away from a bunch of other really important stuff?

"Conservative Government in Ottawa - Just Visiting"

I can't wait.

BC Elections - STV for you, not me

I have always been leery about movements for institutional change as a mechanism to "solve" a problem.

I admit, on paper, it looks bad when governments in BC and Quebec are formed with less popular votes than the other side got. Yes, I admit, on paper, it looks querky when a party wins 77 out of 79 seats with just over 50% of the vote. Yes, I admit, on paper, a riding election decided by two votes will ensure one person holds the seat for four years.

On Paper, however, elections are not about the results. Elections are about your ability to have a say in those results. Elections are about having some people not getting what they want.

That is why a referendum has a thresholds. To avoid the tyranny of the minority - to make sure that the most people hate this option the least.

Proponents of STV have always argued that a disproportionate result that doesn't reflect the "will" of the electorate is bad for democracy, and skews the governance model away from the best interests of the polis. I suspect these proponents tend to be those who favour a smaller, less successful party - or members of an institutional party whose local candidate never has a chance in hell.

Opponents of STV have said "its too hard, with all the vote splitting and the multi-member districts, who will be my elected official anyway?" I suspect these people are mostly institutional party hacks.

Ambivalent theocrats like myself wonder - what is wrong with the current system, and who cares? We have a government, we elect people, they read speeches and make budgets - and life goes on. Without delving too deeply into the straw man argument regarding minority parliaments, do you REALLY want more elected houses that mirror the specrapulathon in Ottawa?

To distill the issue into simple terms - as I am like to to - shows ME that there is no need to radically reform electoral systems to better reflect the will of the people for two reasons. First, there is no such thing as a "collective" election - while an interesting political science paper, individual rights to democratic enfranchisement are just that - individual rights. Your vote is secret and it is your vote. Just like your right to worship in public, or not have hearsay used against you - you have the right to cast a vote. Canadians do not have a right to have their votes merged together.

Critics of the FPTP always decry the current model as one that denies people the franchise. Well, as Obama put it very succinctly - "I won." The model picks winners - and it should. Governance is NOT about hearing other ideas, it is about establishing who is the administrator of old ones, and how new ones can be incorporated into that discussion.

That right to vote is not infringed by FPTP. The lunatic argument that a system that doesn't "count" all votes because it is a winner take all model is, as I described at the beginning of this sentence, lunatic worthy. That is a tautology. The only time votes don't get counted in the current system is when corrupt yahoos are destroying ballots behind closed doors. That can happen in any system.

For record, if 8.1 of the votes in BC voted Green, they are just dumb because they should have voted for Campbell in order to preserve the Carbon tax. How ironic would it have been for the Green party to have splity the vote sufficiently to allow the NDP to take power and repeal the Carbon Tax? Gold Jerry.

Secondly, and I think more practically, regardless of the system, politicians have a special talent for fucking good ideas up all on their own. Regardless of how they are elected to a higher office, once there, they will approach issues through the exact same prism - how does this make me look great and make them look bad?

I am wary that any model of selection will fix that - I can think of no system of PR around the world that doesn't take the politics out of it. There are many systems that shift the politics - ostensibly changing the debate to which party is more right (pun intended) for israel, or makes better amarone in the north of italy - their politicians are just as loaded with vitriol. They are not more conciliatory - though they fake it for a few weeks as governments are formed.

Yes, STV is different. Yes, STV will make some allowances that will allow for more voices to be heard in the legislature. Bollocks if you think that those voices will still not be whipped by higher ups in the party echelon. Even for the smallest parties, who want to make sure the people they have in the offices in question can be leveraged to make the party more attractive to a broader spectrum of voters the next time around.

Regardless of your personal view of how bad the current model is,

Do we want an election?

No.

We are smarter. We are better managers. We have better (or we have some) ideas.

We don't want or need an election. We have had more elections in the last 5 years then we need - and if we pulled the plug, it might backfire.

We need the public to demand an election - barely cresting at 35ish percent in the polls fails to accomplish that - and a push poll, no less. Right now, the only people who really want an election, it would seem - are the people of Quebec - who always seem to want to vote on stuff.

If I was in charge of anything (and I am not) I would make sure that we are ready to go, I would get all the signs ready, I would get the ideas ready (and on paper) and I would start creating a stark contrast between me and the other guy(s).

And I would wait. I would expose each element of incompetency - knowing that they don't really dare do all that much in the interim. And yes, I understand that not doing anything can also have profound effects on the economy. Government uncertainty is way worse, I can assure you.

Maybe that doesn't sound like leadership, but in my world, you don't have to be cavalier to lead - sometimes, caution is the better choice of valour. Yes, I am aware that I am mixing metaphors.